BS  1192. 

5  .K58  1918 

Knudson, 

Albert  Cornel: 

Lus, 

1873- 

The  reli 

gious  teaching 

of 

1   the  Old 

Testament 

The  Religious  Teaching 
of  the  Old  Testament 


BY 

ALBERT  C.  KNUDSON 

Piofei80i  in  Boston  University  School  of  Theology 


THE  ABINGDON  PRESS 
NEW  YORK  CINCINNATI 


Copyright,  19 1 8,  by 
ALBERT  C.  KNUDSON 


The  nible  text  used  in  this  volume  is  taken  from  the  American  Standard  Edition  of  the 
Revised  Bible,  copyright,  1901.  by  Thomas  Nelson  &  Sons,  and  is  used  by  permission. 


To 

My  Father 
a  faithful  minister  of 
the  gospel  for  almost 

'fifty   YEARS 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Preface 13 

I.  INTRODUCTION 

CHAPTER  I 

Outline  of  the  Development  of  Old  Testament  Religion 
AND  Literature 17 

Principle  of  evolution,  p.  1 7 — Its  application  to  Hebrew  history, 
p.  20 — Gradual  adjustment  of  the  historic  Christian  faith  to 
the  evolutionary  view  of  Scripture,  p.  2 1 — Idea  of  evolution  in 
the  Bible,  p.  23 — Date  of  the  Priestly  Law,  p.  25 — Structure  of 
the  Pentateuch,  p.  26 — Date  of  Psalms  and  Wisdom  Books, 
p.  28 — Divergences  of  opinion  relative  to  the  preprophetic  re- 
ligion and  the  Messianic  hope,  p.  28 — Main  facts  in  the  re- 
ligious history  of  the  preprophetic  period,  p.  34 — Literature  of 
the  preprophetic  period,  p..  37 — Religion  and  literature  of  the 
prophetic  period,  p.  38 — History  and  literature  of  the  legalistic 
period,  p.  41 — Chronological  table  of  Old  Testament  literature, 
P-  43- 

IL  GOD  AND  ANGELS 

CHAPTER  II 
The  Personality  of  God 49 

Definition  of  personality,  p.  49 — Importance  of  the  personality 
of  God  in  religion  and  in  the  Old  Testament,  p.  49 — Questions 
of  the  divine  existence,  p.  51 — Question  as  to  the  possibility 
of  knowing  God,  p.  52 — Origin  of  the  name  "Jehovah,"  p.  54 — 
Origin  and  derivation  of  the  name  "Yahweh,"  p.  55 — Is  the 
ascription  of  personality  to  God  an  anthropomorphism?  p.  58 — 
Anthropomorphisms  in  the  Old  Testament  and  development 
in  their  use,  p.  59 — Freedom  of  God  in  nature  and  history, 
p.  61 — Miracles  in  the  Old  Testament  and  their  significance, 
p.  64 — Personality  of  God  and  modem  thought,  p.  66. 

CHAPTER  III 

The  Unity  of  God 68 

Double  meaning  of  the  word  "unity,"  p.  68 — Origin  of  the  beHef 
in  the  unity  of  Yahweh  and  reason  for  late  emphasis  on  it,  p.  68 
— Relation  of  early  Yahwism  to  Baalism,  p.  70 — Polybaalism 
and  polyyahwism,  p.  71 — Unity  of  Yahweh's  character  as 
distinguished  from  unity  of  his  being,  p.  73 — Absence  of  sexual 
distinctions  in  the  Hebrew  idea  of  God,  p.  74 — Anticipations  of 
the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  in  the  Old  Testament,  p.  76 — Pre- 
Mosaic  Hebrews  polytheistic,  p.  78 — Monolatry  of  Moses  and 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 

its  distinguishing  characteristic,  p.  79 — Intolerance  of  Yahweh 
and  its  origin,  p.  81 — EHjah's  contribution  to  the  develop- 
ment of  monotheism,  p.  ,,83 — Teaching  of  eighth-century 
prophets,  p.  85 — Deutero-Isaiah's  emphasis  on  the  sole  deity 
of  Yahweh,  p.  88 — Doctrine  of  the  divine  unity  in  postexilic 
period,  p.  90 — Summary,  p.  91. 

CHAPTER  IV 

The  Spirituality  of  God 93 

Three  different  meanings  of  spirituaHty,  p.  93 — Hebrew  concep- 
tion of  spirit  as  distinguished  from  matter,  p.  94 — Was  Yahweh 
thought  of  as  having  a  physical  form?  p.  95 — God  spiritual 
in  the  metaphysical  sense  of  the  term,  p.  96— Dynamic  con- 
ception of  divine  spirituality,  and  idealistic  element  involved  in 
it,  p.  97 — Ethical  conception  of  divine  spirituality,  p,  99 — 
Practical  implications  of  spirituality  of  God,  p.  loi — Sacrifices 
and  thei^r  relation  to  spiritual  worship,  p.  102 — Localization  of 
Yahweh  and  its  bearing  on  the  divine  spirituality,  p.  104 — The 
ark,  its  nature  and  significance,  p.  105 — The  temple,  its  history 
and  religious  significance,  p.  107 — Anti-image  movement  in 
Israel,  its  history  and  significance,  p.  109 — Doctrine  of  the  Spirit 
and  its  importance,  p.  114. 

CHAPTER  V 

The  Power  of  God 115 

Religious  value  of  the  attribute  of  power,  p.  115 — Yahweh  at 
first  not  a  mere  War-God  or  Storm-God,  p.  116 — Yahweh  at 
the  outset  not  a  mere  national  or  local  Deity,  p.  118 — Distinc- 
tion between  the  practical  postulates  and  theoretical  beliefs 
of  the  early  Israelites,  p.  120 — Limitations  ascribed  to  Yahweh, 
p.  120 — Passionate  loyalty  the  unique  and  significant  element 
in  the  relation  of  early  Israel  to  Yahweh,  p.  122 — Creatorship 
not  necessarily  an  evidence  of  a  Deity's  vmiversal  rule,  p.  123 — 
Creatorship  of  Yahweh  in  Deutero-Isaiah  and  later  literature, 
p.  124 — Creation  stories  common  among  primitive  peoples, 
p.  127 — Allusions  to  Yahweh's  creatorship  in  the  early  literature 
of  Israel,  p.  128 — Relation  of  biblical  to  Babylonian  accounts 
of  creation,  p.  4130 — Teaching  of  the  prophets  relative  to  the 
universal  rule  and  world-purpose  of  Yahweh,  p.  131 — Origin 
of  these  ideas,  p.  132 — Eternity,  omnipotence,  omniscience, 
and  omnipresence  of  God,  p.  135. 

CHAPTER  VI 

The  Holiness  of  God 137 

Modern  conception  of  holiness,  p.  137 — Meaning  of  kodesh,  p.  137 
— Holiness  originally  a  unique  and  indefinable  attribute  of 
Deity,  p.  138 — Origin  of  the  distinction  between  holy  and  un- 
clean, p.  139 — Relation  of  the  later  ideas  of  holiness  and  un- 
cleanness  to  each  other,  p.  140 — Holy  things  and  places  not 

8 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 

necessarily  the  property  of  the  Deity,  p.  141 — Holiness  not  a 
mere  expression  of  the  idea  of  relation,  p.  142 — Holiness  not 
the  peculiar  characteristic  of  each  individual  deity,  p.  143 — 
Unapproachableness  as  an  element  in  holiness,  p.  144 — Re- 
lation of  holiness  to  the  divine  wrath  and  jealousy,  p.  144 — 
Holiness  as  power  or  majesty,  p.  146 — Idea  of  the  divine  glory, 
p.  147 — Yahweh's  sanctification  of  his  own  name,  p.  148 — Holi- 
ness as  purity,  p.  149 — Ethical  justification  of  Old  Testament 
ceremonialism,  p.  150 — Ethical  conception  of  hoHness,  p.  151 
— Holiness  of  God  in  postexilic  Judaism  and  teaching  of  Jesus, 
P-  153- 

CHAPTER  Vn 

The  Righteousness  of  God 154 

Distinctive  factor  in  Israel's  religion  ethical,  not  ceremonial,  p.  154 
— Hebrew  conception  of  the  divine  righteousness  as  compared 
with  that  of  other  peoples,  p.  155 — Ultimate  explanation  of  the 
Hebrew  belief  in  the  righteousness  of  God,  p.  156 — Significance 
of  Amos,  p.  156 — Date  of  the  Decalogue,  p.  157 — Budde's  theory, 
p.  158 — Ethically  significant  factor  in  the  work  of  Moses,  p.  159 
— Diverse  elements  in  the  conception  of  Yahweh's  character 
during  the  preprophetic  period,  p.  vi62 — Prophetic  conception 
of  Yahweh,  p.  163-t-Evils  condemned  by  the  prophets,  p.  164 
— Ethical  idealism  of  the  prophets,  p.  167 — Relation  of  right- 
eousness to  mercy,  p.  168 — Election  of  Israel  in  the  light  of  the 
divine  righteousness,  1 70 — Religious  significance  of  the  moraliza- 
tion  of  the  idea  of  God,  p.  171. 

X  CHAPTER  VIII 

The  Love  of  God 173 

Importance  of  the  idea  of  the  divine  love,  p.  173 — Terms  used 
to  express  the  love  of  God,  p.  173 — Hosea  not  the  author  of 
the  idea  of  the  divine  grace,  p.  174 — Conception  of  Yahweh's 
favor  in  early  Israel,  p.  175 — Different  meanings  of  the  word 
berith  ("covenant"),  p.  176 — Uses  of  beriih  in  pre-Deuteronomic 
times,  p.  177 — Berith  in  Deuteronomy,  Jeremiah,  Ezekiel, 
Deutero-Isaiah,  and  P,  p.  178 — Divine  grace  the  fundamental 
thought  underlying  the  covenant-idea,  p.  179 — Origin  and 
significance  of  the  idea  of  Yahweh  as  husband  of  Israel,  p.  180 
— Conception  of  God  as  Father,  p.  182 — Hosea's  contribution 
to  the  development  of  the  idea  of  the  divine  love,  p.  185 — 
Yahweh's  attitude  toward  the  heathen,  p.  185 — Christianity  as 
the  supreme  expression  of  the  doctrine  of  the  divine  grace,  p.  1 88 
— Summary  of  the  development  of  the  doctrine  of  God,  p.  189. 

CHAPTER  IX 

Angels  and  Other  Divine  Beings 192 

Definition  of  "angel,"  p.  192 — Different  terms  used  to  designate 
angels,  p.  193 — Nature  of  angels,  p.  193 — Function  of  angels, 

9 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 

and  their  origin,  p.  194 — Malakim  during  the  preexilic  period, 
p.  198 — Development  of  angelology  after  the  exile,  p.  201 — 
Angels  as  mediators,  p.  202 — Angels  as  distinct  personalities, 
p.  202 — Different  ranks  or  orders  of  angels,  p.  203 — General 
character  of  angels,  p.  205 — Form  of  angels,  p.  206 — Seraphim, 
p.  206 — Cherubim,  p.  207 — Religious  significance  of  belief  in 
angels,  p.  208 — Moral  character  of  angels,  p.  208 — Fallen  angels, 
demons,  and  other  superhuman  beings  hostile  to  God,  p.  209 
— Development  of  the  idea  of  Satan,  p.  210. 

III.  MAN  AND  REDEMPTION 
CHAPTER  X 

The  Nature  of  Man 217 

Old  Testament  doctrine  of  man  as  compared  with  the  doctrine 
of  God,  p.  217 — Different  meanings  of  spirituality  as  applied  to 
man,  p.  218 — General  character  of  Old  Testament  psychology 
and  physiology,  p.  219 — Flesh  (basar),  p.  219 — Relation  of 
the  soul  (nephesh)  to  matter,  p.  222 — Different  meanings  of  the 
word  nephesh,  p.  224 — Preexistence  of  the  soul,  p.  225 — Tra- 
ducianism  and  creationism,  p.  226 — Trichotomy,  p.  227 — 
Spirit  (ruach),  p.  229 — Heart,  p.  231 — Spiritualistic  element  in 
the  Hebrew  conception  of  man,  p.  232 — Dignity  of  man,  p.  233 
— Man  as  the  image  of  God,  p.  235 — Human  freedom,  p.  236. 

CHAPTER  XI 

The  Doctrine  of  Sin 239 

Two  tendencies  in  Old  Testament  teaching  relative  to  sin,  p.  239 
— Defective  elements  in  the  early  conception  of  sin,  p.  239 — 
Indications  of  a  higher  view  of  sin  in  preprophetic  Israel,  p.  242 
-p-Moralization  of  the  idea  of  sin  by  the  eighth-century  prophets, 
p.  243 — Offenses  against  God,  p.  246 — Postexilic  ceremonialism, 
p.  247 — "Unwitting"  sins  and  sins  "with  a  high  hand,"  p.  249 
— Utilitarianism  of  Proverbs,  p.  250 — Teaching  of  Psalms 
and  Job,  p.  251 — Seriousness  of  the  Old  Testament  view  of  sin, 
p.  253 — Nature  of  sin,  254 — Universality  of  sin,  p.  258 — Origin 
of  sin,  p.  260 — Genesis  3,  p.  261 — Native  bias  to  sin,  p.  262 — 
Transmission  of  guilt,  p.  264. 

CHAPTER  XII 

The  Problem  of  Suffering 266 

Relation  of  sin  to  guilt  and  suffering,  p.  266 — Earliest  view  as  to 
the  cause  of  suffering,  p.  267 — View  of  suffering  in  early  Israel, 
p.  268 — Genesis  2-3,  p.'-  270 — Eighth-century  prophets  and 
Deuteronomy,  p.  271 — Suffering  not  a  problem  in  pre-Deu- 
teronomic  period,  p.  272 — Reasons  for  the  rise  of  the  problem 
of  suffering,  p.  272 — Objections  to  the  principle  of  retributive 
righteousness,  p.  275 — Habakkuk,  p.  277 — Jeremiah's  contribu- 

10 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 

tion  to  the  problem  of  suffering,  p.  280 — Ezekiel,  p.  281 — 
Deutero-Isaiah,  p.  283 — Job,  p.  284 — Proverbs,  Ecclesiastes, 
and  Psalms  37,  49  and  T2»  P-  287. 

■   CHAPTER  XIII 

Forgiveness  and  Atonement 290 

Importance  of  the  ideas  of  sin,  forgiveness,  and  atonement  in  the 
Old  Testament,  p.  290 — Relation  of  forgiveness  to  suffering,  p. 
291-4-4'rophetic  contribution  to  the  idea  of  forgiveness,  p.  292 
— Bearing  of  the  Messianic  hope  and  of  the  teaching  of  Deutero- 
Isaiah  and  Job  on  the  conception  of  forgiveness,  p.  294 — Divine 
mercy  the  ultimate  grotmd  of  forgiveness,  p.  295 — Special  motives 
operative  in  the  forgiveness  of  Israel,  p.  296 — Repentance, 
reformation,  and  faith,  p.  298 — Intercession,  p.  299 — Partial 
punishment  of  sin,  p.  300 — Vicarious  suffering,  p.  30i-Tr-Pro- 
phetic  attitude  toward  sacrifices  as  means  of  atonement,  p.  303 
— Meaning  of  "atonement,"  p.  304 — Different  theories  con- 
cerning the  origin  and  underlying  motive  of  sacrifice,  p.  305 — 
Prevailing  Old  Testament  conception  of  sacrifice,  p.  308 — Sin- 
offerings  and  trespass-offerings,  p.  310 — Atoning  sacrifices 
not  cases  of  penal  substitution,  p.  312 — Idea  of  substitution  in 
the  Old  Testament,  p.  314. 

CHAPTER  XIV 

Nationalism  and  Individualism 316 

Modern  theory  of  the  development  of  individualism  and  its  appli- 
cation to  the  Old  Testament,  p.  316 — The  nation  as  religious 
unit  to  be  understood  in  a  racial  rather  than  political  sense, 
p.  320 — Relation  of  the  solidarity  of  nation  to  that  of  family, 
clan,  and  other  smaller  groups,  p.  321 — The  nation,  past  and 
present,  morally  interrelated  but  not  conceived  of  as  a  corpor- 
ate personality,  p.  325 — Ancient  Hebrew  not  more  interested 
in  public  affairs  than  modern  man,  p.  327 — Current  theory  as 
to  the  place  of  the  individual  in  preexilic  Israel  negatived  by 
general  considerations  drawn  from  Israelitic  history  and  liter- 
ature, p.  331 — Recognition  of  the  individual  in  pre-Jeremianic 
literature,  p.  335 — The  individual  as  well  as  nation  an  object 
of  the  divine  care  in  early  Israel,  p.  337 — Jeremiah's  and  Ezekiel 's 
contributions  to  the  development  of  individualism,  p.  341 — 
Individualism  among  the  postexilic  prophets,  priests,  and  sages, 
p.  346 — Teaching  of  Job,  p.  347 — Culmination  of  individual- 
ism and  nationalism  in  the  Old  Testament,  p.  349. 

CHAPTER  XV 

The  Messianic  Hope 35' 

Double  meaning  of  "Messianic,"  p.  351 — Four  elements  in  the 
Messianic  hope,  p.  351 — Current  theory  as  to  the  origin  and 
character  of  the  Messianic  hope,  and  recent  reaction  against 
it,  p.  352 — Messianic  hope  in  its  essential  nature  not  of  foreign 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 

origin,  p.  354 — Origin  of  the  idea  of  a  judgment,  p.  358 — Sig- 
nificance of  idea  of  a  world-catastrophe,  p.  362 — Different 
views  as  to  the  nature  of  the  impending  judgment,  p.  363 
— Origin  of  the  belief  in  a  glorious  future  for  Israel,  p.  364 — 
Attitude  of  the  preexilic  prophets  toward  the  popular  Messianic 
hope,  p.  365 — Anticipated  transformation  of  nature,  p.  368 — 
Origin  of  the  belief  in  a  Davidic  Messiah,  p.  371 — Origin  of  the 
belief  in  a  personal  Messiah,  p.  373 — The  ideal  king  of  the  early 
prophets,  p.  375 — The  suffering  servant  in  Deutero-Isaiah, 
p.  375 — Son  of  Man  in  Daniel,  p.  376 — Relation  of  the  Mes- 
sianic hope  to  the  Oriental  belief  in  a  series  of  world-cycles, 
P-  377 — Importance  of  the  Messianic  hope,  p.  379. 

CHAPTER  XVI 

The  Future  Life 382 

Negative  attitude  of  the  Old  Testament  toward  the  future  life 
and  reasons  for  it,  p.  382 — Contribution  of  the  Messianic  hope 
to  the  belief  in  personal  immortality,  p.  384 — Origin  of  the  idea 
of  Sheol,  p.  385 — Ancestor  worship  among  the  Hebrews,  p.  386 
— Two  different  views  of  Sheol,  p.  389 — Relation  of  the  pop- 
ular belief  in  Sheol  to  the  later  belief  in  personal  immortality, 
P-  394 — Effect  of  individualism  on  the  Messianic  hope,  p.  395 
— Idea  of  retribution  and  the  belief  in  a  future  life,  p.  396 — 
Fellowship  with  God  and  its  bearing  on  the  beHef  in  immor- 
tality, p.  399 — Psalms  16,  17,  49,  73,  p.  401 — Reasons  for  the 
belief  in  the  resurrection  of  the  body,  p.  403 — Isaiah  26.  19 
and  Daniel  12.  2,  p.  404 — Relation  of  the  Jewish  to  the  Persian 
belief  in  the  resurrection,  p.  405 — Two  different  views  of  the 
fate  of  the  individual  immediately  after  death,  p.  407 — Sheol 
and  the  Messianic  age  in  the  postcanonical  literature,  p.  407. 

Index 409 


12 


PREFACE 

In  this  exposition  of  the  religious  teaching  of  the  Old 
Testament  I  have  adopted  the  topical  method  as  best  cal- 
culated to  meet  the  needs  of  the  preacher  and  general 
Bible  student.  This  method  presupposes  some  acquaint- 
ance with  the  religious  history  of  Israel  taken  as  a  whole. 
The  first  chapter  is  consequently  devoted  to  a  brief  outline 
of  the  development  of  Old  Testament  religion  and  liter- 
ature. 

The  aim  of  the  book  is  to  give  an  account  of  the  origin 
and  development  of  the  leading  religious  ideas  of  the 
Old  Testament.  Incidentally,  the  effort  has  been  made  to 
relate  these  ideas  to  modern  thought.  Controverted  ques- 
tions have  been  made  subordinate,  but  it  has  not  been  pos- 
sible to  avoid  them  altogether.  Scholars  are  generally 
agreed  on  the  history  of  religious  thought  in  Israel  after 
the  time  of  Jeremiah  and  Ezekiel.  But  with  reference  to 
earlier  times,  especially  the  preprophetic  period,  consider- 
able difference  of  opinion  still  prevails.  It  is  the  conten- 
tion of  this  book  that  the  literary  prophets  were  not,  in  the 
proper  sense  of  the  term,  the  "creators  of  ethical  mono- 
theism." The  higher  faith  of  Israel  may  be  traced  back 
into  the  preprophetic  period.  Indeed,  its  germ  is  to  be 
found  in  the  teaching  of  Moses.  As  regards  two  points  in 
particular — the  history  of  the  Messianic  hope  and  the 
place  of  the  individual  in  early  Israel — the  view  held  by 
many  modern  scholars  is  in  need  of  revision.  To  these 
subjects  consequently  special  attention  has  been  given. 

The  traditional  form  of  the  divine  name  "Jehovah" 

13 


PREFACE 

is  the  one  still  in  general  use.  But  the  more  correct  form, 
Yahwe(h)  or  Jahve(h),  is  almost  universally  employed 
among  scholars  (see  pages  54f.)>  and  it  is  only  a  question 
of  time  when  it  will  come  into  general  use.  Hence  I 
have  adopted  it,  though  not  without  some  hesitancy,  in 
all  cases  except  in  the  biblical  quotations,  where  I  have 
followed  the  text  of  the  American  Revised  Version. 

My  special  thanks  are  due  the  Rev.  Elmer  A.  Leslie, 
Ph.D.,  for  the  painstaking  care  with  which  he  has  gone 
through  the  manuscript,  verifying  references  and  making 
numerous  helpful  suggestions  and  criticisms.  I  wish  also 
to  thank  Professor  Edgar  S.  Brightman,  Ph.D.,  for  the 
privilege  of  using  the  advance  sheets  of  his  valuable  work 
on  the  Sources  of  the  Hexateuch. 

Albert  C.  Knudson. 


14 


i 

INTRODUCTION 


CHAPTER  I 

OUTLINE  OF  THE  DEVELOPMENT  OF  OLD 

TESTAMENT  RELIGION  AND 

LITERATURE 

It  is  only  in  comparatively  recent  times  that  the  idea 
of  development  has  been  applied  in  a  thoroughgoing  way 
to  human  history.  During  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth 
centuries  there  were  four  distinguished  thinkers,  namely, 
Bodin  (1530-96),  Bacon  (1561-1626),  Descartes  (1596- 
1650),  and  Pascal  (1623-62),  who  formulated  "the  gen- 
eral fact  of  progress  in  language  so  striking  that  it  could 
no  longer  be  overlooked."  ^  And  in  the  early  part  of  the 
eighteenth  century  the  Italian  jurist  Vico  (1668-1744) 
made  the  theory  of  man's  gradual  development  out  of  a 
barbaric  state  basal  in  the  science  of  history.  But  the 
principles  he  laid  down  did  not  come  to  be  fully  appre- 
ciated until  almost  a  century  later ;  so  that  it  is  only  dur- 
ing the  past  hundred  years  that  the  idea  of  evolution  has 
been  employed  in  a  strictly  scientific  way  in  the  recon- 
struction of  ancient  history. 

Two  principles  are  involved  in  the  evolutionary  con- 
ception of  history.  One  may  be  called  the  naturalistic, 
the  other  the  psychological.  Both  were  stressed  by  Vico. 
In  the  dominant  philosophy  of  history  before  his  time, 
that  represented  by  Augustine's  City  of  God  and  Bos- 
suet's  "Discourse  on  Universal  History,"  Providence  was 


*  Robert  Flint,  History  of  the  Philosophy  of  History,  p.  104. 

17 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

made  the  central  and  controlling  factor  in  human  history. 
The  rise  and  fall  of  nations  was  ascribed  to  divine  inter- 
vention, and  so  also  the  development  of  each  particular 
people.  God  was  represented  as  everywhere  the  efficient 
cause  in  human  affairs.  But  this  idea,  however  true  it 
may  be,  was  not  fitted  to  serve  as  the  working  basis  of  a 
scientifically  written  history.  For  Providence  is  a  matter 
of  faith,  not  of  observation.  It  is  not  one  among  a  num- 
ber of  causes  operative  in  human  history,  but  the  sole  ulti- 
mate cause  in  whose  existence  theists  believe.  It  does  not 
stand  opposed  to  what  is  sometimes  called  secondary 
causes,  but  works  in  and  through  them.  In  any  case  what 
we  see  when  we  observe  and  study  human  history  is  cer- 
tain human  forces  and  motives  at  work.  These  forces 
and  motives  are  as  varied  as  human  nature.  They  grow 
out  of  physical  need,  out  of  ambition,  passion,  and  the 
higher  aspirations  of  men.  But  they  are  not  aimless  or 
lawless.  They  operate  in  certain  regular  ways,  and  the 
function  of  the  historian  is  to  ascertain  what  these  laws 
are,  and  then  apply  them  to  the  reconstruction  of  the  past. 
It  was  this  naturalistic  principle  that  Vico  put  in  the  place 
of  Augustine's  and  Bossuet's  Providence.  In  so  doing  he 
did  not,  however,  deny  the  fact  of  Providence.  He  ac- 
cepted it,  but  interpreted  it  in  a  profounder  way,  look- 
ing upon  God  as  immanent  in  human  history  rather  than 
external  to  it. 

The  psychological  principle  laid  down  by  Vico  empha- 
sizes the  importance  of  our  interpreting  primitive  men 
from  their  own  point  of  view.  "All  our  errors,"  he  held, 
"in  explaining  the  origin  of  human  society  arise  from  our 
obstinacy  in  believing  that  primitive  man  was  entirely 
similar  to  ourselves,  who  are  civilized,  i.e.,  developed  by 
the  results  of  a  lengthy  process  of  anterior  historic  evolu- 

i8 


OUTLINE  OF  DEVELOPMENT 

tion.  We  must  learn  to  issue  from  ourselves,  transport 
ourselves  back  to  other  times,  and  become  children  again 
in  order  to  comprehend  the  infancy  of  the  human  race. 
As  in  children,  imagination  and  the  senses  prevailed  in 
those  men  of  the  past.  They  had  no  abstract  ideas;  in 
their  minds  all  was  concrete,  visible,  tangible.  All  the  phe- 
nomena, forces,  and  laws  of  nature,  together  with  mental 
conceptions,  were  alike  personified.  To  suppose  that  all 
mythical  stories  are  fables  invented  by  the  philosophers  is 
to  write  history  backwards,  and  confound  the  instinctive, 
impersonal,  poetic  wisdom  of  the  earliest  times  with  the 
civilized,  rational,  and  abstract  occult  wisdom  of  our  own 
day."  2  It  was  this  mistake  that  the  eighteenth-century 
historians,  such  as  Hume  and  Gibbon,  made.  They  re- 
jected the  Augustinian  idea  of  Providence,  but  put  no 
constructive  principle  in  its  place.  They  failed  to  grasp 
the  conception  of  growth  or  development.  For  them  it 
was  difficult  to  conceive  of  men  as  living  and  thinking 
under  conditions  quite  different  from  those  with  which 
they  themselves  were  familiar,  and  hence  they  were  un- 
able to  arrive  at  a  true  understanding  of  the  past.  Not 
until  the  dawn  of  the  nineteenth  century  did  historians 
begin  to  appreciate  the  psychological  principle  laid  down 
by  Vico,  and  to  enter  more  sympathetically  into  the 
thought-life  of  the  ancient  world. 

When  these  two  principles,  the  naturalistic  and  psy- 
chological, implicit  in  the  evolutionary  conception  of  his- 
tory, were  applied  in  a  thoroughgoing  way  to  ancient 
history,  as  for  example,  by  Niebuhr  to  Rome,  they  led  to 
important  modifications  of  the  views  that  had  hitherto 
been  current.  But  so  long  as  their  application  was  con- 
fined to  "profane"  history,  no  serious  difficulty  arose.    It 

^Encyclopaedia  Britannica,  vol.  xxviii,  p.  24. 

19 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

was  generally  admitted  that  in  the  "natural"  sphere  they 
were  valid.  When,  however,  they  came  to  be  applied  to 
"sacred"  history,  the  situation  was  different.  Here  they 
ran  counter  to  long-established  beliefs  and  deep-seated 
convictions.  Vico  had  regarded  Hebrew  history  as  siti 
generis,  and  this  was  the  common  belief.  But  when  the 
naturalistic  principle  was  applied  to  the  Bible,  the  sharp 
distinction  hitherto  drawn  between  the  "sacred"  and  "pro- 
fane" was  obliterated.  The  effort  was  now  made  to  write 
a  history  of  the  Hebrews  similar  to  that  of  the  Romans. 
Little  or  no  account  was  taken  of  supernatural  factors. 
The  miraculous  revelations  and  interventions  that  seemed 
to  be  characteristic  of  Israel's  history  were  ascribed  to 
"Oriental"  or  "primitive"  habits  of  thought  and  expres- 
sion. They  were  not  in  the  proper  sense  of  the  term  his- 
torical facts;  yet  they  were  not  due  to  fraud,  as  was 
claimed  by  the  unbelievers  of  the  eighteenth  century. 
They,  rather,  owed  their  peculiar  character  to  the  Oriental 
type  of  speech  or  to  the  myth-making  tendency  of  the 
ancient  mind.  In  any  case  the  attempt  was  made  to  in- 
terpret the  history  of  Israel  so  far  as  possible  as  a  natural 
development;  and  this  resulted  in  a  somewhat  radical 
modification  of  the  traditional  views  relative  to  the  origin 
and  history  of  Old  Testament  religion  and  literature. 

Against  this  tendency  there  was  naturally  a  vigorous 
protest.  A  long  controversy  ensued.  The  advocates  of 
the  new  view  were  regarded  as  "unbelievers" ;  and  many 
of  them  were  such.  But  that  this  was  the  case,  we  now 
see,  is  not  strange.  "There  are  manifest  reasons  why 
the  critical  movement  should  originate,  and  for  a  time  be 
prosecuted  outside  of  the  circles  dominated  by  an  earnest 
Christian   faith.     For  one  thing,   only  there  could  the 

20 


OUTLINE  OF  DEVELOPMENT 

necessary  freedom  be  found.  For  ages  Christian  piety 
had  been  so  intimately  bound  up  with  certain  views  con- 
cerning the  origin  of  the  Scriptures  that  its  very  exist- 
ence seemed  to  be  involved  in  the  maintenance  of  those 
views.  Any  attempt,  then,  at  their  revision,  in  quarters 
where  religious  conviction  was  strong,  would  necessarily 
have  met  with  strenuous  opposition.  Again,  the  impulse 
to  such  revision  was  primarily  intellectual.  The  men  who 
engaged  in  it  were,  most  of  them,  moved  by  a  passion  for 
knowledge  rather  than  religion.  And  such  men  under 
modern  conditions  of  life  naturally  found  the  extra-ec- 
clesiastical atmosphere  more  congenial.  There  knowl- 
edge might  be  pursued  for  its  own  sake,  regardless  of  con- 
sequences. Furthermore,  the  stress  on  the  natural,  as 
opposed  to  the  miraculous,  which  underlies  modern  criti- 
cism, was  necessarily  at  the  outset  more  or  less  repugnant 
to  religious  minds.  To  treat  the  Bible  as  one  does  other 
books  seemed,  at  first,  sacrilegious."  ^ 

But  this  feeling  gradually  gave  way.  Men  began  to 
see  that  there  is  no  necessary  antithesis  between  the  "na- 
tural" and  the  "supernatural,"  that  God  is  immanent  in 
the  world,  and  that  the  "natural"  is  only  the  ordinary 
way  in  which  God  works.  What  happens  in  a  natural 
way  may  be  as  direct  an  expression  of  the  divine  will  as 
a  miracle.  It  is  not  necessary  that  the  Bible  should  have 
been  miraculously  dictated  to  men  in  order  to  be  accepted 
as  "the  word  of  God."  Indeed,  the  great  fact  of  the  cre- 
ative or  constitutive  activity  of  thought,  first  made  clear 
to  us  by  Immanuel  Kant,  renders  such  a  method  of  revela- 
tion inherently  improbable.     The  human  mind  is  not  the 

^  See  the  author's  article  on  "The  Philosophy  and  Theology  of 
the  Leading  Old  Testament  Critics,"  in  Bibliotheca  Sacra,  1912, 
pp.  1-21. 

21 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

passive  recipient  of  a  ready-made  knowledge.  It  receives 
from  without  certain  stimuli,  and  then  out  of  them  builds 
up  for  itself  its  own  world.  In  the  case,  then,  of  "re- 
vealed" truth  what  we  should  expect  is  that  certain  im- 
pulses from  the  Divine  Spirit  would  impinge  upon  the 
human  mind,  and  that  these  would  then  be  worked  up  in 
harmony  with  the  mind's  own  laws  and  translated  into  the 
concrete  messages  of  the  prophets.  In  this  process  much 
that  is  distinctively  human  would  necessarily  intermingle 
with  the  divine,  and  there  would  be  in  the  process  itself 
nothing  essentially  different  from  that  observed  in  the 
composition  of  other  books.  The  Bible,  we  should  con- 
sequently expect,  would  be  a  book  or  collection  of  books 
to  be  studied  just  as  other  books  are.  It  would  not  be 
inerrant.  Its  origin  and  development  would  be  subject 
to  the  same  laws  as  those  operative  in  the  literature  of  any 
people. 

Furthermore,  it  has  become  increasingly  clear  since  the 
time  of  Kant  that  logical  demonstration  is  impossible  in 
the  field  of  objective  knowledge,  and  that  in  the  religious 
realm  the  final  test  of  truth  is  not  to  be  found  in  any 
absolute  objective  authority,  whether  church  or  Bible, 
but  in  experience.  If  the  Bible  finds  us  at  greater  depths 
of  our  being  than  any  other  book,  if  it  enriches  our  lives 
and  inspires  us  to  heroic  service,  if  it  makes  God  real  to 
us,  we  have  in  that  fact  a  sufficient  evidence  of  its  inspira- 
tion. We  need  no  doctrine  of  infallibility  to  assure  us 
of  its  truth.  Nor  is  it,  from  this  point  of  view,  a  matter 
of  concern  to  us  that  there  is  much,  especially  in  the 
earlier  parts  of  the  Bible,  that  seems  to  us  crude  and 
obsolete.  In  any  historical  movement  the  important  thing- 
is  the  outcome  and  not  what  it  came  out  of.  By  its  fruits 
we  must  judge  it,  not  by  its  roots.     This  pragmatic  test 

22 


OUTLINE  OF  DEVELOPMENT 

of  truth,  together  with  the  idea  of  the  divine  immanence 
and  that  of  the  constitutive  activity  of  the  human  mind, 
has  so  modified  Christian  thought  during  the  past  century 
that  the  older  fear  of  the  "critical"  and  evolutionary  con- 
ception of  Scripture  has  largely  vanished.  It  is  now  seen 
that  there  is  nothing  in  what  may  be  termed  the  modern 
view  of  the  Bible  that  is  necessarily  inconsistent  with  the 
historic  Christian  faith.'* 

But  the  acceptance  of  the  evolutionary  view  of  the  Old 
Testament  does  not  necessarily  carry  with  it  any  specific 
reconstruction  of  the  history  of  Old  Testament  religion 
and  literature.  Indeed,  the  evolutionary  idea  appears  to 
some  extent  in  the  Bible  itself,  especially  in  the  work  of 
the  priestly  contributor  to  the  Pentateuch.  "The  ordered 
and  schematic  arrangement  of  this  author's  creation 
story,"  says  H.  P.  Smith,  "made  him,  in  a  sense,  the  first 
of  the  evolutionists,  and  his  theory  of  development  comes 
to  view  in  his  treatment  of  the  institutions  of  Israel.  The 
Sabbath  was  introduced  at  the  beginning;  at  the  Deluge 
the  prohibition  of  blood  as  food  was  imposed ;  at  the  birth 
of  Isaac  circumcision  was  commanded;  and  at  the  exodus 
the  observance  of  the  passover."  ^  The  idea  of  a  pro- 
gressive revelation  appears  also  in  the  author's  theory 
concerning  the  divine  names.  Before  Abraham  the  name 
of  God  was  Elohim  or  El;^  in  the  patriarchal  age  he  was 
known  as  El  Shaddai  ;^  and  to  Moses  he  revealed  himself 
as  Yahweh.^  We  further  find  the  idea  of  development  in 
Paul's  conception  of  the  Old  Testament  dispensation  as 

*  For  a  more  extended  discussion  of  this  subject  see  the  author's 
article  on  "The  Evolution  of  Modern  Bible  Study,"  in  the  Meth- 
odist Review,  191 1,  pp.  899-gio. 

°  The  Religion  of  Israel,  pp.  229f.  '  Gen.  17.  i. 

'  Gen.  I.  » Exod.  6.  2-3. 

23 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

a  preparatory  and  partial  one.  The  Law  was  a  tutor  to 
bring  us  to  Christ.^  Not  until  "the  fullness  of  time"  did 
Christ  come.^"  These  facts  show  that  a  kind  of  evolu- 
tion was  recognized  by  some  of  the  biblical  writers  them- 
selves. And  to  this  it  may  be  added  that  some  of  the 
modern  exponents  of  evolution,  such  as  Bruno  Bauer, 
have  applied  their  theory  to  the  Old  Testament  in  such  a 
way  as  to  involve  no  serious  modification  of  the  tradi- 
tional view  as  to  its  origin  and  history.  The  bare  idea  of 
development  does  not,  then,  necessarily  imply  any  particu- 
lar scheme  of  historical  reconstruction.  The  problem  in 
each  case  must  be  solved,  not  by  a  priori  considerations, 
but  by  a  careful  critical  study  of  the  data  involved. 

There  are,  however,  as  we  have  seen,  certain  principles 
implicit  in  the  idea  of  evolution;  and  these  principles, 
when  applied  in  a  consistent  and  thoroughgoing  way, 
have  led  to  important  modifications  of  the  traditional 
view  relative  to  the  Old  Testament.  The  most  important 
of  these  modifications  has  to  do  with  the  date  when  the 
higher  religious  ideas  of  the  Old  Testament  were  first 
expressed,  and  its  elaborate  ritualistic  and  ecclesiastical 
system  formulated.  According  to  tradition,  the  ritual- 
istic and  ecclesiastical  system  as  embodied  in  the  Law 
owed  its  origin  to  Moses;  and  the  higher  religious  ideas 
of  the  Old  Covenant,  such  as  the  unity  of  God,  his 
creatorship,  righteousness,  and  grace  were  more  ancient 
still.  We  find  them  with  Abraham;  indeed,  our  first 
parents  are  represented  as  monotheists.  But,  leaving 
out  of  account  the  pre-AIosaic  age,  the  question  arises 
as  to  whether  it  is  probaljle  that  Israel's  religion  came 
into  being  full-fledged  at  the  very  beginning  of  the  na- 


Gal.  3.  24. 
"Gal.  4.  4. 


24 


OUTLINE  OF  DEVELOPMENT 

tion's  history.  Is  it  probable  that  such  an  elaborate 
ecclesiastical  system  as  that  found  in  the  Pentateuch 
was  formulated  by  Moses,  and  that  the  lofty  ideas  of  the 
divine  nature  and  character  there  expressed  came  from 
him?  The  analogy  of  other  peoples  points  strongly  to  a 
later  date.  So  complete  a  system  of  religious  belief  and 
practice  as  we  find  in  the  Law  would  certainly  most  natu- 
rally appear  at  the  end  of  a  long  period  of  development 
rather  than  at  the  very  birth  of  the  nation.  The  people 
in  Moses'  time  were  not  prepared  for  such  an  elaborate 
and  highly  developed  system.  The  very  conditions  of 
their  life  would  have  made  it  impracticable.  And  when 
we  turn  to  the  subsequent  history  of  Israel,  the  period  of 
the  Judges  and  the  Monarchy,  we  find  no  evidence  that 
the  Levitical  system  was  in  vogue  among  the  people.  The 
assumption  of  the  Mosaic  origin  of  the  Law  throws  no 
light  on  the  historical  and  prophetic  books.  "On  the 
contrary,"  says  Wellhausen,  "my  enjoyment  of  the  latter 
was  marred  by  the  Law ;  it  did  not  bring  them  any  nearer 
me,  but  intruded  itself  uneasily,  like  a  ghost  that  makes  a 
noise  indeed,  but  is  not  visible  and  really  effects 
nothing."  ^^  "Did  ye,"  says  Amos,  "bring  unto  me  sacri- 
fices and  offerings  in  the  wilderness  forty  years,  O  house 
of  Israel?"  ^^  "I  spake  not,"  says  Jeremiah,  "unto  your 
fathers,  nor  commanded  them  in  the  day  that  I  brought 
them  out  of  the  land  of  Egypt,  concerning  burnt-offerings 
or  sacrifices."  ^^  Evidently,  these  prophets  and  the  peo- 
ple of  their  day  knew  nothing  of  an  extended  ritual  law 
attributed  to  Moses.  This  law,  it  would  seem,  must  have 
come  from  a  later  date,  probably  from  the  time  of  Ezra 

"  History  of  Israel,  p.  3. 

"5.25. 
"  7.  22, 

25 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

and  Nehemiah.  There  is  also  no  evidence  that  the  higher 
rehgious  ideas  of  the  Pentateuch  were  current  among  the 
early  Israelites.  These  ideas  seem  to  have  been  first 
clearly  expressed  by  the  eighth-century  prophets. 

There  are  thus  three  periods  that  may  be  distin- 
guished in  the  religious  history  of  Israel.  The  rise  of 
literary  prophecy  marks  the  end  of  the  first  and  the  begin- 
ning of  the  second;  and  the  introduction  of  the  Priestly 
Law  marks  the  end  of  the  second  and  the  beginning  of  the 
third.  The  first  is  commonly  known  as  the  preprophctic 
period;  it  extended  from  about  B.  C.  1200  to  B.  C.  750. 
The  second  is  the  prophetic  period ;  it  covered  three  cen- 
turies, from  B.  C.  750  to  B.  C.  450.  The  third  may  be 
called  the  legalistic  or  levitical  period;  it  also  covered 
about  three  centuries,  extending  from  B.  C.  450  to  the 
close  of  Old  Testament  history,  which  may  be  placed  at 
B.  C.  150  or  100. 

The  assignment  of  the  Priestly  Law  to  the  fifth  cen- 
tury B.  C.  does  not  mean  that  the  whole  Pentateuch  was 
written  at  that  time.  Scholars  are  now  quite  generally 
agreed  that  the  Pentateuch  is  a  composite  work,  that  it  is 
made  up  of  four  main  documents.  Two  of  these  were 
written  in  the  preprophetic  period,  the  third  in  the  pro- 
phetic, and  the  fourth  at  the  beginning  of  the  legalistic 
period.  The  first  two  are  commonly  designated  by  the 
symbols,  J  and  E,  J  standing  for  Jehovistic  and  E  for 
Elohistic.  This  nomenclature  is  due  to  the  fact  that  the 
J  document  uses  the  name  "Jehovah"  or  "Yahweh"  from 
the  beginning,  while  the  E  document  does  not  introduce 
the  name  "Jehovah"  until  the  time  of  Moses, ^"^  using 
instead  the  Hebrew  word  for  "God,"  Elohim.  To  J  "is 
referred  about  a  half  of  Genesis,  a  sixth  of  Exodus,  a 

"  Exod.  3. 13-15. 

26 


OUTLINE  OF  DEVELOPMENT 

fifteenth  of  Numbers,  and  a  few  verses  in  Deuteronomy." 
E  ''is  credited  with  having  furnished  more  than  a  fourth 
of  Genesis  and  Exodus,  about  a  ninth  of  Numbers,  and 
...    a  few  verses  of  Deuteronomy,"    The  third  docu- 
ment is  known  as  D  or  the  Deuteronomic.    It  originated 
in  the  seventh  century  B,  C,  and  is  now  incorporated  in 
Deuteronomy.    How  much  of  the  present  book  of  Deu- 
teronomy belonged  to  the  original  D  document  is  a  ques- 
tion on  which  scholars  are  divided.     Most  of  chapters 
5-26  is  commonly  assigned  to  it,  and  it  may  also  have  in- 
cluded portions  of  the  rest  of  the  book.    The  fourth  docu- 
ment is  commonly  known  as  P  or  the  Priestly  document. 
It  forms  the  framework  of  the  Pentateuch,  and  includes 
"about  a  fifth  of  Genesis,  nearly  a  half  of  Exodus,  the 
whole  of  Leviticus,  nearly  three  fourths  of  Numbers,  and 
a  few  verses  in  Deuteronomy."     With  reference  to  the 
dates  of  these  different  documents  and  their  union  in  the 
Pentateuch,  Professor  H.  G.  Mitchell  makes  the  compact 
and  representative  statement,  "that  J  originated  about 
850,  and  E  about  B.  C.  800;  that  the  two,  having  been 
more  or  less  revised  and  enlarged,  were  united  into  a  com- 
posite document  before  B.  C.  639;  that  D,  which  was  dis- 
covered in  B.  C.  621,  but  must  have  been  written  some 
time  before  and  revised  in  the  reign  of  Manasseh,  was  in- 
corporated with  JE  early  in  the  Captivity;  and  that  the 
Pentateuch  was  practically  completed  by  the  addition  of 
P,  a  product  of  the  first  half  of  the  fifth  century  B.  C., 
before  444,  if  not  before  458,  the  date  of  Ezra's  appear- 
ance in  Palestine."  ^^ 


**  The  World  Before  Abraham,  p.  63.  The  other  quotations  in  the 
above  paragraph  are  also  taken  from  this  work,  which  contains  an 
excellent  introduction  to  the  Pentateuch  (pp.  1-67).  See  also  The 
Books  of  the  Pentateuch,  by  F.  C.  Eiselen.    The  text  of  the  J,  E, 

27 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

The  late  date  of  the  larger  part  of  the  Pentateuch  and 
the  view  that  the  higher  religious  ideas  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment were  first  clearly  expressed  by  the  eighth-century 
prophets,  carry  with  them  the  conclusion  that  the  Psalms 
and  Wisdom  Books  (Proverbs,  Job,  and  Ecclesiastes) 
were  also  of  comparatively  late  date,  for  these  books,  like 
the  Pentateuch,  presuppose  the  work  of  the  literary 
prophets.  The  book  of  Psalms  was  not  written  by  David, 
as  was  formerly  supposed.  It  was  the  songbook  of  the 
second  temple,  and  most  of  the  individual  psalms  were 
written  after  the  exile.  Indeed,  the  question  has  been 
raised  as  to  whether  there  are  any  preexilic  psalms  in  the 
collection.  Proverbs  and  Ecclesiastes  were  not  the  work 
of  Solomon,  but  came  from  the  postexilic  period;  and 
Job  instead  of  being  the  oldest  book  of  the  Bible  probably 
dates  from  the  fourth  century  B.  C. 

These  general  modifications  of  the  traditional  view 
relative  to  the  history  of  the  Old  Testament  religion  and 
literature  have  been  accepted  by  most  modern  scholars; 
but  there  are  still  considerable  differences  of  opinion  con- 
cerning the  dates  of  particular  portions  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment, and  concerning  the  character  of  the  religious  life 
and  beliefs  of  the  Israelites  during  the  preexilic  and  espe- 
cially the  preprophetic  period.  Some  critics  are  inclined 
to  minimize  the  work  of  Moses  and  to  reduce  the  pre- 
prophetic religion  of  Israel  to  the  plane  of  a  nature  reli- 
gion. This  is  due  in  large  part  to  a  mistaken  application 
of  the  principle  of  evolution.  Evolution  is  interpreted 
either  from  the  standpoint  of  biology  or  from  that  of  the 

and  P  documents  is  presented  in  a  convenient  form  and  with  ad- 
mirable introductions  in  The  Sources  of  the  Hexaieuch,  by  Edgar 
S.  Brightman. 

28 


OUTLINE  OF  DEVELOPMENT 

Hegelian  philosophy.  In  biology  evolution  is  supposed 
to  be  a  slow  but  more  or  less  steady  upward  movement, 
and  so  it  is  argued  that  the  rather  crude  religious  ideas 
and  practices  of  the  period  of  the  Judges  preclude  a  dis- 
tinctly higher  conception  of  religion  on  the  part  of  Moses. 
If  there  was  in  the  time  of  the  Judges  no  distinct  bond 
between  morals  and  religion,  there  could  have  been  no 
such  bond  in  the  earlier  Mosaic  period.  In  the  Hegelian 
philosophy,  on  the  other  hand,  evolution  is  regarded  as 
a  kind  of  logical  process,  a  dialectic  of  thought.  Thesis 
gives  rise  to  antithesis,  and  these  two  then  unite  in  a 
higher  synthesis.  This  triadic  dialectic,  as  applied  to  Old 
Testament  religion,  made  the  naturalism  of  the  prepro- 
phetic  period  the  thesis,  the  moral  idealism  of  the 
prophets  the  antithesis,  and  the  legalism  of  the  post- 
exilic  priests  the  synthesis.  "In  old  times,"  as  Well- 
hausen  says,  "the  nation  had  been  the  ideal  of  religion  in 
actual  realization;  the  prophets  confronted  the  nation 
with  an  ideal  to  which  it  did  not  correspond.  Then  to 
bridge  over  this  interval  the  abstract  ideal  was  framed 
into  a  law,  and  to  this  law  the  nation  was  to  be  con- 
formed." 

This  conception  of  the  religious  development  of  Israel 
is  a  suggestive  one,  and  contains  much  truth.  But  when 
applied  in  a  thoroughgoing  way  it  leads  to  an  abstract 
and  one-sided  conception  of  the  different  periods  of 
Israel's  history.  The  preprophetic  period,  for  instance,  is 
reduced  to  a  dead  level  of  naturalism.  "The  relation  of 
Yahweh  to  Israel,"  says  Wellhausen,  "was  in  its  nature 
and  origin  a  natural  one;  there  was  no  interval  between 
him  and  his  people  to  call  for  thought  or  question.  Only 
when  the  existence  of  Israel  had  come  to  be  threatened  by 
the  Syrians  and  Assyrians,  did  such  prophets  as  Elijah 

29 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

and  Amos  raise  the  Deity  high  above  the  people,  sever  the 
natural  bond  between  them,  and  put  in  its  place  a  relation 
depending  on  conditions,  conditions  of  a  moral  char- 
acter." ^^  This  implies  that  Moses  contributed  nothing 
of  a  distinctly  ethical  character  to  the  religion  of  Israel. 
Before  this  higher  factor  could  appear,  the  prophetic 
antithesis  must  have  asserted  itself.  Utterances,  conse- 
quently, such  as  the  Decalogue,  which  involve  an  ethical 
conception  of  religion,  cannot  have  come  from  the  Mosaic 
or  preprophetic  period.  Between  the  prophetic  and  pre- 
prophetic  religion  there  was  a  wide  gulf.  The  very  anti- 
thesis between  the  natural  and  the  ethical  implies  this. 
But  life  itself  is  always  too  complex  to  fit  into  any  such 
logical  straitjacket.  No  period  is  completely  dominated 
by  any  one  conception.  The  forces  operative  in  the  pro- 
phetic period  had  their  precursors  in  the  preprophetic, 
and  it  is  unwarranted  to  draw  a  hard-and-fast  line  be- 
tween the  two. 

It  is  a  defect  both  of  the  biological  and  the  Hegelian 
conception  of  human  evolution  that  they  do  not  accord  a 
sufficiently  important  place  to  the  personal  factor.  In  the 
one  case  a  mysterious  necessity  inherent  in  human  nature, 
and  in  the  other  a  kind  of  dialectic  of  thought,  provides 
the  moving  force  in  human  development.  These  forces 
work  through  individuals  but  are  superior  to  them,  using 
them  simply  as  instruments.  History  is  consequently  a 
steady  forward  movement,  so  that  the  insight  of  one  age 
may  be  tested  by  that  of  the  succeeding  age.  But  this  con- 
ception of  history  is  manifestly  untrue  to  the  facts  of  life. 
Conditions  during  the  period  of  the  Judges  do  not  neces- 
sarily furnish  a  test  of  what  the  teaching  of  Moses  was. 
"History,"  as  Toy  says,  "proceeds  by  crisis,  and  a  crisis 

^"History  of  Israel,  pp.  491,  417. 

30 


OUTLINE  OF  DEVELOPMENT 

implies  a  great  man,"  ^"^  who  is  far  ahead  of  his  age. 
"Those,"  says  Kautzsch,  "who  recognize  everywhere 
simply  development  in  a  straight  line  from  crude  or  at 
least  naive  naturalism  to  more  and  more  purified  moral 
conceptions,  quite  overlook  the  circumstance  that  their 
contention  is  opposed  by  demonstrably  historical  facts. 
Epochmaking  religious  ideas  generally  come  upon  the 
scene  in  full  strength  and  purity;  it  is  only  in  course  of 
further  development  that  these  products  of  religious  crea- 
tive genius,  or,  better,  of  divine  impulse,  are  corrupted 
and  disfigured  by  the  intrusion  of  vulgar  human  ideas 
and  selfish  interests.  Such  was  the  fate  of  the  religion 
of  Jesus  Christ  in  the  Roman  Church  with  its  popes  and 
monks ;  and  the  same  thing  happened  to  many  of  the  great 
fundamental  ideas  of  the  Reformation  at  the  hands  of 
Protestant  scholasticism.  And  we  are  quite  safe  to 
assume  something  of  the  same  kind  in  the  process  of  the 
development  of  Yahwism.  The  great  fundamental  ideas 
upon  which  its  institution  rests  were  often  forced  into  the 
background  during  the  wandering  period  of  the  people's 
history  and  in  the  time  of  endless  struggles  for  national 
existence  under  the  Judges.  .  .  .  But  they  did  not  die 
out,  and  when,  in  the  eighth  century  B.  C,  they  were  put 
forward  by  Amos  and  others  with  the  greatest  clearness 
and  precision  and  urged  upon  the  conscience  of  the  people, 
these  prophets  had  a  perfect  right  to  claim  that  they  were 
making  no  new  and  unheard-of  demands,  but  only  pro- 
claiming what  from  Sinai  downward  had  been  recog- 
nized as  facts."  ^^ 

The  prophets  are,  then,  to  be  regarded  not  as  inno- 

"  Judaism  and  Christianity,  p.  21. 

"  "The  Religion  of  Israel,"  in  Hastings'  Dictionary  of  the  Bible, 
vol.  V,  p.  632. 

31 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

vators,  but  as  reformers.^^  For  the  source  of  Israel's 
higher  faith  we  must  go  back  to  Moses.  "The  germs  of 
ethical  monotheism,"  as  A.  R.  Gordon  says,  "are  already 
found  in  the  Yahweh  religion  as  proclaimed  by  Moses, 
and  handed  down  in  its  purity  among  the  'thousands  in 
Israel  that  have  not  bowed  the  knee  to  Baal.'  .  .  . 
There  is  no  real  breach  between  the  prophets'  exalted  con- 
ceptions of  God,  and  the  earlier  faith  in  Yahweh  in  the 
pious  circles  in  the  land.  .  .  .  The  religion  of  Yahweh 
— by  virtue  of  its  ethical  character — was  instinct  with  the 
power  of  immortal  life  from  the  beginning.  And  this 
inherent  quality  is  not  to  be  explained  from  the  events  of 
history  alone,  nor  yet  from  the  external  bond  of  the  union 
that  bound  Israel  with  Yahweh,  but  from  the  essential 
character  of  Yahweh  himself."  ^^ 

In  this  connection  two  other  errors  may  be  noted  into 
which  Old  Testament  critics  have  fallen.  In  contending 
that  the  early  religion  of  Israel  was  devoid  of  a  higher 
ethical  element  they  have  often  overlooked  the  fact  that 
the  literary  remains  from  that  early  period  are  mere  frag- 
ments, and  that  these  fragments  are  of  such  a  character 
that  we  would  not  naturally  expect  to  find  in  them  ex- 
pressions of  a  higher  ethical  faith.  The  situation  is  sim- 
ilar to  what  would  have  been  the  case  with  regard  to  the 
eighth  century  B.  C.,  if  the  prophetic  sermons  from  that 
time  had  not  come  down  to  us.  The  historical  narratives 
dealing  with  this  period  fail  altogether  to  reveal  to  us 

'"  Compare  this  statement  by  Wellhausen,  History  of  Israel,  p. 
398:  "After  the  spirit  of  the  oldest  men  of  God,  Moses  at  the  head 
of  them,  had  been  in  a  fashion  laid  to  sleep  in  institutions,  it  sought 
and  found  in  the  prophets  a  new  opening;  the  old  fire  burst  out  like 
a  volcano  through  the  strata  which  once,  too,  rose  fluid  from  the 
deep,  but  now  were  fixed  and  dead." 

'"The  Early  Traditions  of  Genesis,  pp.  Ii8f. 

32 


OUTLINE  OF  DEVELOPMENT 

the  lofty  faith  attained  by  the  prophets.  And  this  may 
well  be  the  case  also  with  the  narratives  that  have  to  do 
with  the  earlier  periods  of  Israel's  history.  The  date 
when  an  idea  first  appears  in  extant  literature  by  no 
means  fixes  the  date  of  its  origin. 

Again,  critics  have  not  taken  adequate  account  of  pos- 
sible foreign  and  traditional  elements  in  the  religious  be- 
liefs of  preexilic  Israel.  They  have  attempted  to  deduce 
these  beliefs  psychologically  from  the  historical  experi- 
ences of  the  nation.  This  method  is  no  doubt  in  large 
measure  justifiable.  But  over  and  above  the  beliefs  that 
grow  out  of  experience  there  is  always  in  every  nation  a 
large  body  of  beliefs  that  have  been  inherited  from  the 
past  or  borrowed  from  other  peoples.  Hence  it  is  a  mis- 
take in  method  to  attempt  to  deduce  the  entire  teaching  of 
the  early  prophets  from  the  conditions  of  their  own  time, 
and  to  assume  that  their  utterances  must  all  have  been 
logically  consistent  with  each  other.  It  is,  for  instance, 
claimed  that  the  Messianic  hope  is  inconsistent  with  the 
prophetic  message  of  doom,  and  that  the  passages  in  the 
preexilic  profJhetic  books  that  announce  this  hope  must 
consequently  be  assigned  to  a  later  date.  But  it  is  quite 
possible,  indeed  probable,  that  the  Messianic  hope  had 
been  handed  down  from  the  past,  and  that  the  prophets 
simply  adapted  it  to  their  own  time  without  seeking  to 
harmonize  it  with  their  message  as  a  whole.  In  any  case 
strict  logical  consistency  is  not  to  be  expected  of  any  man 
who  lives  in  close  touch  with  his  age,  and,  least  of  all,  of 
poets  such  as  the  prophets. 

But  apart  from  divergences  of  opinion  due  to  such 
methodological  errors  as  these  there  are  still  many  points 
in  which  the  data  are  too  scanty  and  too  uncertain  to  war- 
rant a  confident  conclusion.     Concerning  many  matters 

33 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

in  the  history  of  Old  Testament  rehgion  and  literature  we 
must  remain  in  ignorance  or  content  ourselves  with  mere 
conjecture.  How  uncertain  the  date  of  many  individual 
passages  is,  is  well  illustrated  by  the  widely  different  opin- 
ions of  representative  modern  scholars.  Kirkpatrick,  for 
instance,  assigns  the  second  psalm  to  about  B.  C.  950; 
Briggs  to  B.  C.  625 ;  and  Baethgen  to  the  second  century 
B.  C.  But  in  spite  of  such  differences  there  is  still  a  large 
body  of  facts  on  which  critics  are  quite  generally  agreed, 
and  these  we  now  present  in  brief  outline. 

We  begin  with  the  preprophetic  period,  which  extended 
from  the  time  of  Moses  to  that  of  Amos  and  covered 
about  four  hundred  and  fifty  years  (1200-750).  PoHt- 
ically,  this  period  was  not  a  unit.  It  embraced  the  period 
of  the  Judges  (1200-1030),  that  of  the  United  Monarchy 
(1030-937),  and  a  considerable  part  of  that  of  the 
Divided  Monarchy  (937-750).  But  the  political  changes, 
represented  by  the  establishment  of  the  monarchy  and  its 
division,  did  not  seriously  affect  the  religious  life  and 
thought  of  the  people.  The  establishment  of  the  mon- 
archy led  to  the  removal  of  the  neglected  ark  to  Jerusalem 
and  the  building  of  the  temple;  and  this,  when  worship 
was  later  centralized  in  Jerusalem,  became  an  important 
factor  in  the  religious  life  of  the  nation.  But  at  first  the 
temple  was  simply  the  royal  sanctuary.  This  no  doubt 
gave  to  it  a  certain  preeminence,  but  worship  elsewhere 
was  not  suppressed.  And  even  its  preeminence  was  not 
recognized  in  the  larger  northern  kingdom  after  the  divi- 
sion of  the  monarchy.  There  Bethel  and  Dan  supplanted 
Jerusalem.  The  calf- worship  set  up  in  the  northern  sanc- 
tuaries by  Jeroboam  was  severely  condemned  by  later 
writers ;  and  it  did  probably  mark  a  decline  from  the  purer 

34 


OUTLINE  OF  DEVELOPMENT 

worship  at  the  Jerusalem  temple,  at  which  no  image  seems 
to  have  been  kept.  But,  in  general,  religious  conditions  in 
Judah  did  not  differ  essentially  from  those  in  Israel. 
Throughout  the  entire  preprophetic  period  sacrifices  were 
offered  at  many  different  sanctuaries,  and  much  that  was 
impure  and  heathenish  came  to  be  associated  with  them. 
When  the  Israelites  settled  in  Canaan  they  adopted  to  a 
large  extent  the  rites  and  customs  of  their  new  neighbors, 
and  these  acted  in  many  cases  as  a  corrupting  influence  in 
their  life.  As  instances  of  this  influence,  or  at  least  of  a 
crude  and  undeveloped  type  of  religious  life,  we  may  cite 
the  widespread  use  of  images  as  illustrated  not  only  by  the 
golden  calves  of  Jeroboam,  but  by  the  ephod  of  Gideon,^^ 
the  story  of  Micah,^^  and  the  teraphim  in  Saul's  family  ;23 
we  may  also  note  the  use  of  the  lot  in  determining  the 
divine  will,^'*  the  superstitious  sanctity  attributed  to  the 
vow  as  evidenced  in  the  cases  of  Jephthah^^  and  Saul,^^ 
and  the  abhorrent  rite  of  prostitution  in  connection  with 
the  public  sanctuaries.^'' 

But  over  against  such  facts  as  these  is  to  be  placed 
the  prophetic  movement  which  harked  back  to  Moses  and 
the  marvelous  deliverance  from  Egypt.  This  movement 
seems  to  have  had  in  it  at  the  outset  more  or  less  of  the 
spirit  of  manticism  and  dervishlike  ecstasy.^^  But  on 
the  whole  it  stood  opposed  to  the  corrupting  influence  of 
Canaanitic  life  and  thought,  and  sought  to  promote  the 

"  Judg.  8.  22-27. 

"Judg.  17-18. 

"1  Sam.  19.  I3ff. 

"  I  Sam.  14.  18-20 ;  23.  2 ;  2  Sara.  2.  I. 

"-"Judg.  II.  aoff. 

*"  I   Sam.  14.  24-46. 

"  Amos  2.  7 ;  Hos.  4.  i3f. 

"i  Sam.  10.  1-13;  19.  18-24. 

35 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

purer  faith  of  the  fathers.  The  prophets  seem  to  have 
been  especially  active  in  the  eleventh  century  at  the  time  of 
the  Philistine  peril,  and  again  in  the  ninth  century  at  the 
time  of  the  Syrian  menace.  But  they  probably  formed 
a  continuous  succession  from  the  time  of  Moses  down. 
They  were  deeply  interested  in  the  welfare  of  the  nation, 
and  did  not  hesitate  to  rebuke  the  rulers  when  occasion 
demanded.  They  regarded  themselves  as  the  direct  mouth- 
piece of  Yahweh,  and  as  such  were  zealous  advocates  of 
his  cause.  They  defended  right  and  established  custom  as 
over  against  the  lust  and  greed  of  kings,  and  when  in  the 
time  of  Ahab  the  sole  authority  of  Yahweh  was  threat- 
ened by  the  introduction  of  the  Tyrian  Baal,  they  rose  in 
rebellion  against  the  reigning  family  and  did  not  rest  con- 
tent until  a  new  house  had  been  set  upon  the  throne.  This 
was  perhaps  the  greatest  achievement  of  the  preliterary 
prophets.  The  revolution  of  Jehu  (B.  C.  842),  brought 
about  by  the  work  of  Elijah  and  Elisha,  outlawed  the 
worship  of  other  gods  in  Israel,  and  made  Yahweh  once 
for  all  supreme.  This  was  no  new  doctrine.  It  had  been 
plainly  taught  by  Moses,  but  not  apparently  until  the  time 
of  Elijah  did  its  full  practical  significance  come  to  be  ap- 
preciated. In  this  connection  it  may  be  added  that  it  is 
to  be  regarded  as  providential  that  Israel  for  three  cen- 
turies after  the  settlement  in  Canaan  was  left  unmolested 
by  the  great  empires  of  the  East  and  West.  Had  Israel  in 
that  early  day  been  conquered  by  Egypt  or  Assyria,  the 
free  development  of  its  religious  life  would  have  been  im- 
possible. Yahweh  would  have  been  subdued  before  his 
supremacy  had  been  fully  established.  But  when  his 
name  had  once  been  set  on  high  by  the  glorious  reigns  of 
David  and  Solomon,  it  was  possible  for  the  prophets  to 
see  in  the  disasters  of  the  Syrian  wars  and  in  the  threat- 

36 


OUTLINE  OF  DEVELOPMENT 

ened  subjection  to  Assyria  an  evidence  not  of  his  weak- 
ness but  of  his  moral  rectitude.  The  sufferings  of  these 
later  days  were  a  punishment  for  the  people's  sins. 

The  literature  that  has  come  down  from  the  pre- 
prophetic  period  is  not  extensive.  The  Decalogue^^  in 
a  briefer  form  may  have  been  the  work  of  Moses.  The 
Code  of  the  Covenant^^  and  the  so-called  J  Decalogue^^ 
are  also  early  collections  of  laws.  From  the  time  of  the 
Judges  we  have  the  Song  of  Deborah,^^  which  is  fre- 
quently spoken  of  as  the  earliest  monument  of  Hebrew 
literature.  The  lament  of  David  over  Saul  and  Jon- 
athans^ is  almost  universally  accepted  as  authentic,  and 
the  Blessing  of  Jacob^*  is  also  commonly  assigned  to  the 
reign  either  of  David  or  Solomon.  The  Oracles  of 
Balaam,^®  too,  may  perhaps  come  from  about  the  same 
time,  though  some  scholars  put  them  a  century  or  two 
later.  The  Blessing  of  Moses^^  was  probably  written 
about  B,  C.  780.  In  addition  to  these  poems  there  are  a 
number  of  poetic  fragments  that  are  early,  such  as  Exod. 
15.  ib-3;  Num.  10.  35f. ;  21.  i/f. ;  Josh.  10.  I2b-I3a; 
2  Sam.  3.  33f. ;  18.  33 ;  i  Kings  8.  I2f.  The  Hero-Stories 
in  the  book  of  Judges  were  probably  reduced  to  written 
form  shortly  after  the  division  of  the  monarchy,  and  the 
Jerusalem  stories  of  David^^  may  have  been  still  earlier. 
The  latter  document,  as  Kautzsch  says,  "is  one  of  the 
most  complete,  truthful,  and  finished  products  of  histor- 

"'  Exod.  20.   1-17. 

^  Exod.  20.  22  to  23.  19. 

^'  Exod.  34.  14-26. 

"Judg.  5. 

"2  Sam.  I.  19-27. 

'*  Gen.  49. 

'"  Num.  23-24. 

""  Deut  33- 

"  2  Sam.  5-7 ;  9-20. 

37 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

ical  writing  which  have  come  down  to  us  from  the  He- 
brews, and,  indeed,  from  the  whole  ancient  world."  ^^ 
Many  of  the  other  narratives  incorporated  in  Samuel  and 
Kings  are  also  early  and  reliable.  The  prophetic  stories 
found  in  i  Kings  17  to  2  Kings  13  were  probably  written 
early  in  the  eighth  century.  Of  the  J  and  E  documents 
incorporated  in  the  Pentateuch  we  have  already  spoken. 
They  deal  chiefly  with  the  patriarchal  and  Mosaic  periods 
and  contain  in  that  way  not  a  little  historical  material, 
but  their  chief  value  lies  in  what  they  reveal  concerning 
the  beliefs  of  the  Israelites  in  the  ninth  century  when 
they  were  written. ^^ 

The  prophetic  period  in  Israel's  religious  history  (750- 
450),  like  the  preceding  period,  was  lacking  in  political 
unity.  Shortly  after  the  time  of  Amos  Samaria  fell 
(721),  and  with  it  the  larger  part  of  the  Davidic  kingdom 
came  to  an  end.  Judah  escaped  a  similar  fate  twenty 
years  later  by  a  marvelous  deliverance  from  the  hands  of 
Sennacherib  (701),  and  continued  to  exist  as  a  state  until 
the  fall  of  Jerusalem  in  586.  After  a  period  of  about 
seventy  years  the  temple  was  rebuilt  (520-516),  and  the 
local  community  began  to  revive,  largely  as  the  result  of 
the  enthusiasm  of  the  exiles  who  had  returned.  But  con- 
ditions were  far  from  encouraging.  Poverty  and  oppres- 
sion were  the  common  lot,  and  doubt  and  despair  often 
hung  over  the  community.  Such  in  brief  were  the  out- 
ward   fortunes   of   the   Israelites   during   the   prophetic 

^  The  Literature  of  the  Old  Testament,  p.  25. 

°'For  a  detailed  study  of  the  literature  of  the  Old  Testament  in 
its  chronological  development  see  Kautzsch's  Literature  of  the  Old 
Testament,  and  especially  Harlan  Creelman's  Introduction  to  the 
Old  Testament.  The  latter  is  a  book  of  exceptional  value  as  a  stu- 
dent's manual. 

38 


OUTLINE  OF  DEVELOPMENT 

period.  Calamity  followed  calamity,  and  hope  time  and 
again  was  disappointed.  But  Israel's  religion,  as  some 
one  has  said,  was  like  the  pearl,  which  grows  by  the  pain 
and  the  death  of  the  oyster.  The  decline  and  fall  of  the 
state  and  the  sufferings  of  the  people  only  stimulated  the 
prophets  to  new  insight,  leading  them  to  enunciate  those 
great  spiritual  truths  that  have  become  the  permanent 
possession  of  mankind.  It  is  literally  true  that  the  endur- 
ing elements  in  Old  Testament  religion  were  built  upon 
the  ruins  of  the  state.  If  it  had  not  been  for  the  work  of 
the  prophets,  it  is  virtually  certain  that  Israel's  religion 
would  have  perished  with  the  fall  of  the  nation.  Old 
Testament  religion  is  the  only  national  religion  that  ever 
survived  the  nation's  downfall.  When  other  nations  fell 
they  threw  their  gods  to  the  moles  and  the  bats,  thinking 
they  had  been  overcome  by  superior  deities.  And  this 
would  have  happened  in  Israel  had  it  not  been  for  the 
prophets,  who  during  the  period  of  the  nation's  decline 
elevated  Yahweh  to  the  throne  of  universal  sovereignty, 
and  declared  that  the  destroyers  of  the  nation  were  simply 
the  instruments  of  his  wrath.  This  is  a  most  remarkable 
fact  without  parallel  in  the  religious  history  of  mankind. 
Had  monotheism  originated  in  Assyria  or  Egypt,  it  would 
not  have  been  so  strange,  for  these  empires  were  virtually 
world-powers.  But  that  it  should  have  originated  among 
a  small  people  like  the  Hebrews,  and  have  been  first  pro- 
claimed among  them  at  the  very  time  that  they  were  on 
the  road  to  political  ruin,  is  a  fact  so  contrary  to  the 
normal  operations  of  the  human  mind  that  we  cannot  but 
see  in  it  a  special  manifestation  of  the  presence  of  the 
Spirit  of  God.  There  is  no  better  proof  of  the  inspiration 
of  the  Old  Testament  than  just  this  fact. 

Aside  from  the  teaching  of  the  prophets,  the  outstand- 

39 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

ing  religious  event  in  the  prophetic  period  was  the  Deuter- 
onomic  reform.  This  was  effected  in  B.  C.  621.  It  was 
an  attempt  to  make  the  IsraeHtic  state  conform  with  the 
demands  of  the  prophets,  so  that  it  might  escape  the  doom 
which  had  been  pronounced  upon  it.  But  the  reform  was 
too  external  and  superficial  to  accomplish  its  purpose. 
The  centralization  of  worship,  however,  which  it  estab- 
lished proved  a  significant  element  in  the  subsequent  life 
of  the  people.  After  the  fall  of  Jerusalem  a  similar  pro- 
gram was  outlined  for  the  restored  community  by  Ezekiel 
(572),  and  this  too  had  an  important  influence  on  the 
later  development  of  the  Jev^^ish  Church.  But  it  was  not 
until  the  next  period  that  this  influence  came  to  full 
fruition. 

With  the  advent  of  the  literary  prophets  we  are  able  for 
the  first  time  to  date  somewhat  precisely  the  monuments 
of  Hebrew  literature  that  have  come  down  to  us.  The 
dates  of  the  eighth-century  prophets  (Amos,  Hosea, 
Isaiah,  Micah)  can  be  determined  with  a  fair  degree  of 
certainty.  The  same  is  also  true  of  the  group  of  prophets 
who  appeared  shortly  before  the  fall  of  Jerusalem  (Ze- 
phaniah,  Nahum,  Habakkuk,  Jeremiah,  Ezekiel).  Isaiah 
40-55  is  to  be  placed  at  about  B.  C.  540,  and  the  follow- 
ing chapters  (56-66)  within  the  next  seventy  or  eighty 
years.  Haggai  and  Zechariah  give  their  own  dates 
(520),  and  Malachi  and  Obadiah  probably  belong  shortly 
before  450.  Besides  Deuteronomy  and  Ezekiel  40-48  we 
have  another  legal  code  in  this  period,  the  so-called  Law 
of  Holiness,'*"  now  incorporated  in  P.  Its  exact  date  is 
uncertain,  but  it  should  perhaps  be  placed  after  Ezekiel 
(560-550).  J,  E,  and  D  were  combined  into  a  single 
work  during  the  exile,  and  to  about  the  same  time  is  to  be 

*'  Lev.  17-26. 

40 


OUTLINE  OF  DEVELOPMENT 

referred  the  Deuteronomistic  redaction  of  Judges,  Sam- 
uel, and  Kings.  Lamentations,  in  part  at  least,  must 
have  been  written  shortly  after  the  fall  of  Jerusalem, 
and  the  Song  of  Moses  (Deut.  32)  should  probably  be 
assigned  to  about  560.  The  completed  Psalter  and  the 
book  of  Proverbs  belong  to  a  later  date,  but  many  indi- 
vidual psalms  and  proverbs  no  doubt  had  their  origin  in 
this  period.    Indeed,  some  of  them  may  be  older  still. 

Concerning  the  external  history  of  Israel  during  the 
legalistic  or  levitical  period  (450-150)  we  know  compara- 
tively little.  The  Jewish  community  restored  after  the 
exile  was  a  church,  not  a  state.  Its  interests  were 
ecclesiastical,  not  political.  Not  until  the  very  close  of 
the  period  did  it  assume  independent  political  action,  and 
then  simply  in  defense  of  its  faith.  What  the  post-exilic 
Jews  aimed  at  was  the  establishment  of  a  religious  com- 
munity so  pure  and  holy  that  it  would  prove  worthy  of 
the  glorious  promises  made  to  the  nation  by  the  prophets 
of  old.  It  was  this  motive  that  lay  back  of  the  elaborate 
legal  system  that  became  the  foundation  of  Judaism.  A 
preliminary  sketch  of  this  system  was  made  by  Ezekiel 
(chapters  40-48).  Later  priests  developed  it,  and  finally 
under  Ezra  and  Nehemiah  (444)  it  was  made  the  law  of 
the  restored  community.  This  law  tended  to  create  a 
sharp  line  of  distinction  between  the  Jews  and  other  peo- 
ples. The  wall  of  Jerusalem  rebuilt  by  Nehemiah  was 
symbolic  of  the  wall  of  separation  that  he  and  Ezra 
established  between  the  Jewish  and  heathen  worlds.  In- 
termarriage with  other  peoples  was  forbidden,  and  certain 
peculiar  rites  and  customs  were  insisted  upon  which  gave 
to  Judaism  an  exclusive  and  nationalistic  character  that 
seems  out  of  harmony  with  the  earlier  prophetic  teaching. 

41 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

But  this  very  exclusiveness  served  an  important  purpose. 
It  enabled  Judaism  to  maintain  its  integrity  as  over 
against  Greek  naturalism,  which  became  dominant 
throughout  southwestern  Asia  after  the  conquests  of 
Alexander.  Judaism  is  "the  only  example  of  an  Oriental 
religion  emancipating  itself  from  the  influence  of  Hellen- 
ism" (Schiirer).  And  it  became  such,  as  Cornill  says, 
only  "because  Ezra  and  Nehemiah  had  rendered  it  hard 
as  steel  and  strong  as  iron.  In  this  impenetrable  armor  it 
was  insured  against  all  attacks,  and  thus  saved  religion 
against  Hellenism.  And  therefore  it  behooves  us  to  bless 
the  prickly  rind,  to  which  we  owe  it,  that  the  noble  core 
remained  preserved."  ^^  Had  it  not  been  for  the  work 
of  Ezra  and  Nehemiah,  the  successful  revolt  of  the  Mac- 
cabees would  have  been  impossible,  and  Judaism  would 
have  been  crushed  by  Antiochus  Epiphanes. 

But  while  legalism  was  the  dominant  characteristic  of 
Old  Testament  religion  after  the  time  of  Ezra  and  Ne- 
hemiah, the  literature  that  has  come  down  to  us  from  this 
period  makes  it  evident  that  there  were  also  other  sig- 
nificant forces  at  work  among  the  people.  The  legalistic 
tendency  was  embodied  in  the  Priests'  Code,  which  seems 
to  have  been  united  with  J,  E,  and  D  to  form  the  Penta- 
teuch about  B.  C.  444.  In  recent  times,  however,  not  a 
few  scholars  have  put  Ezra's  expedition  after  that  of  Ne- 
hemiah, and  in  that  case  the  completion  of  the  Pentateuch 
should  probably  be  assigned  to  about  B.  C.  398,  the 
seventh  year  of  the  second  Artaxerxes.^^  The  tendency 
reflected  in  P  appears  also  in  the  priestly  histories,  Chron- 
icles-Ezra-Nehemiah,  which  originally  formed  one  work, 
and  in  Esther.     As  distinct  from,  and  at  times  opposed 

"  The  Prophets  of  Israel,  pp.  i62f. 
"  Ezra  7.  7. 

42 


OUTLINE  OF  DEVELOPMENT 

to,  this  tendency,  we  have  the  prophetic  spirit,  which 
manifested  itself  in  three  different  ways.  In  such  books 
as  Ruth  and  Jonah  it  directly  opposed  the  narrowness  and 
exclusiveness  of  the  legalistic  program.  In  apocalyptic 
works,  such  as  Joel,  Isaiah  24-27,  Zechariah  9-14  and 
Daniel,  it  kept  alive  the  earlier  prophetic  hopes  of  the 
speedy  coming  of  the  kingdom  of  God.  And  in  the 
Psalms  it  nurtured  a  deep  spirit  of  personal  piety  such  as 
we  find  in  Jeremiah.  Another  significant  tendency  in 
post-exilic  Judaism  was  that  represented  by  the  Wisdom 
Literature — Proverbs,  Job,  and  Ecclesiastes.  Here  the 
speculative  and  humanistic  spirit  in  Israel  m.anifests  itself. 
Religion  is  a  problem  which  each  one  feels  called  upon  to 
settle  for  himself.  This  type  of  thought  no  doubt  had  its 
place  to  some  extent  in  the  earlier  history  of  Israel,  but 
the  three  Old  Testament  books  in  which  it  is  embodied 
belong,  at  least  in  their  completed  form,  to  the  legalistic 
period. 

We  thus  have  at  the  close  of  the  Old  Testament  dis- 
pensation a  complex  religious  life.  There  were  diverse 
and  even  contradictory  elements  in  it.  But  in  the  midst 
of  all  the  diversity  and  all  the  contradictions  there  was 
a  solid  body  of  truth,  the  product  of  centuries  of  spiritual 
struggle,  which  was  destined  to  form  the  basis  of  a  uni- 
versal faith. 

For  the  convenience  of  the  reader  the  following  table 
giving  the  approximate  dates  of  the  more  important  docu- 
ments in  the  Old  Testament  is  appended : 

I.     The  Preprophetic  Period  (B.  C.  1200-750). 
Decalogue  (Exod.  20.  1-17),  1200? 
Song  of  Deborah  (Judg.  5),  iioo. 
David's  Elegy  (2  Sam.  i.  19-27),  1015. 

43 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

Blessing  of  Jacob  (Gen.  49),  1000-950. 

Oracles  of  Balaam  (Num.  23-24),  1000-800. 

Code  of  Covenant  (Exod.  20.  22  to  23,  19),  1200-800. 

The  so-called  J  Decalogue  (Exod.  34.  14-26),  1200-800. 

Hero-Stories  in  Book  of  Judges,  900. 

Early  Saul  and  David  Stories,  950-900. 

J  Document,  850. 

E  Document,  800. 

Blessing  of  Moses  (Deut.  33),  780. 

Prophetic  Stories  in  i  Kings  17  to  2  Kings  13,  775. 

2.  The  Prophetic  Period  (B.  C.  750-450). 

Amos,  750. 

Hosea,  743-734- 

Isaiah,  740-700. 

Micah,  725-715. 

J  and  E  united,  650. 

Zephaniah,  627. 

Deuteronomy  discovered,  621. 

Habakkuk,  621-600. 

Nahum,  607. 

Jeremiah,  626-586. 

Ezekiel,  592-570. 

Code  of  Ezekiel,  572. 

Code  of  Holiness,  560-550. 

Lamentations,  580-550. 

Song  of  Moses  (Deut.  32),  560. 

Union  of  J,  E,  and  D,  550. 

Deuteronomistic  redaction  of  Judges,  Samuel,  and  Kings, 

550. 
Isaiah  40-55»  54°. 
Isaiah  56-66,  536-460. 
Haggai,  520. 

Zechariah,  (1-8),  520-518. 
Malachi,  460. 
Obadiah,  460. 

3.  The  Legalistic  Period.     (B.  C.  450-150). 

P  published  and  united  with  JED,  444  or  398. 

Ruth,  440-430. 

Memoirs  of  Ezra  and  Nehemiah,  432-398. 

Joel,  400. 

Job,  400-350. 

Song  of  Solomon,  350-300. 

44 


OUTLINE  OF  DEVELOPMENT 

Jonah,  300. 
Proverbs,  300-250. 
Chronicles-Ezra-Nehemiah,  300-250. 
Isaiah  24-27,  250-200. 
Zechariah  9-14,  250-200. 
Ecclesiastes,  200. 
Daniel,  164. 
Esther,  160. 
Psalms,  450-150. 


4S 


II 

GOD  AND  ANGELS 


CHAPTER  II 
THE  PERSONALITY  OF  GOD 

Personality  and  moral  quality,  as  Professor  Hock- 
ing says,  "may  well  be  regarded  as  the  most  humanly 
valuable  attributes  of  the  divine  nature."  ^  Indeed,  with- 
out them  the  conception  of  God  would  be  of  very  slight 
value.  The  former  gives  to  religion  its  distinctive  char- 
acter, and  the  latter  imparts  to  it  its  rational  worth.  It 
is  these  two  attributes  that  are  most  conspicuous  in  the 
Old  Testament.  We  here  deal  with  the  first,  the  person- 
ality of  God. 

"Personality"  is  a  term  that  has  had  various  connota- 
tions. Frequently  it  has  been  thought  to  imply  corporeal- 
ity, or  form  or  limitation  of  some  kind.  But  no  such 
implication  necessarily  attaches  to  the  term.  "The  essen- 
tial meaning  of  personality,"  as  Professor  Bowne  says, 
"is  selfhood,  self-consciousness,  self-control,  and  the 
power  to  know."  ^  And  in  this  sense  the  personality  of 
God  is  the  basal  idea  in  religion.  Without  it  there  could 
be  no  religion  in  the  proper  sense  of  the  term.  "Reli- 
gion," to  quote  Bowne  again,  "demands  the  mutual  other- 
ness of  the  finite  and  infinite,  in  order  that  the  relation  of 
lov^  and  obedience  may  obtain.  Both  love  and  religion 
seek  for  union,  but  it  is  not  the  union  of  absorption  or 
fusion,  but,  rather,  the  union  of  mutual  understanding 
and  sympathy  which  would  disappear  if  the  otherness  of 

'  The  Meaning  of  God  in  Human  Experience,  p.  207. 
^  Personalism,  p.  266. 

49 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

the  persons  were  removed."  ^  "No  impersonal  being," 
as  Fairbairn  puts  it,  "whether  named  fate  or  chance, 
necessity  or  existence,  the  soul  or  the  whole,  can  be  an  ob- 
ject of  worship,  though  it  may  be  an  object  of  thought. 
As  a  matter  of  historical  fact,  no  religion  has  ever  been 
a  pantheism,  nor  has  any  pantheism  ever  constituted  a 
religion.  .  .  .  The  impersonal  must  be  personalized 
before  thought,  which  is  a  subjective  activity,  can  pass 
into  worship,  which  is  a  reciprocal  action,  or  a  process  of 
converse  and  intercourse  between  living  minds."  * 

The  personality  of  God  is  therefore  no  peculiarity  of 
Old  Testament  or  biblical  religion.  It  is  a  belief  that  be- 
longs to  all  religions  worthy  of  the  name.  It  is,  however, 
an  idea  that  has  been  apprehended  with  different  degrees 
of  clearness  by  different  peoples.  Among  the  Semites  in 
general  the  tendency  was  to  think  of  God  in  more  dis- 
tinctly personal  terms  than  was  the  case  among  other  peo- 
ples, and  this  was  especially  true  of  the  Hebrews.  "In  the 
Old  Testament  conception  of  God,"  says  Schultz,  "nothing 
stands  out  from  the  first  so  strongly  and  unmistakably  as 
the  personality  of  the  God  of  Israel.  There  is  nowhere 
even  the  faintest  inclination  to  the  thought  of  a  God  with- 
out consciousness  or  will."  ^  One  reason  for  this  signifi- 
cant fact  is  to  be  found  in  the  close  relation  that  Yahweh 
sustained  to  history.  Nature  is  impersonal,  and  the  gods 
of  nature  partake  to  some  degree  of  its  impersonality. 
But  Yahweh  was  primarily  a  God,  not  of  nature,  but  of 
history.  And  history  is  personal.  It  is  the  scene  of  hu- 
man action.  Its  forces  are  personal  forces.  A  god  con- 
sequently who  manifests  himself  chiefly  in  the  field  of 

^  Pcrsonalism,  p.  284. 

*  Philosophy  of  the  Christian  Religion,  p.  241. 

''Old  Testament  Theology,  vol.  ii,  p.  103. 

SO 


THE  PERSONALITY  OF  GOD 

history  necessarily  partakes  of  the  personal  character  of 
history.  And  so  it  was  with  Yahweh.  From  the  begin- 
ning of  the  nation's  history  he  stood  in  the  most  intimate 
relation  to  the  life  of  the  people.  He  revealed  himself  in 
their  fortunes  and  misfortunes,  in  their  hopes  and  fears, 
in  their  longings  and  aspirations.  Their  personal  life  was 
as  a  result  imparted  to  him,  and  he  became  as  intensely 
personal  as  they.  In  this  connection  it  may  be  added  that 
this  manifestation  of  God  in  history  was,  as  Andrew 
Harper  says,  "the  only  possible  form  for  a  real  revela- 
tion of  God;  and  that  the  writers  of  the  Old  Testament 
in  their  circumstances  and  in  their  time  felt  and  asserted 
this,  is  in  itself  so  very  great  a  merit  that  it  is  almost  of 
itself  sufficient  to  justify  any  claims  they  may  make  to 
special  inspiration."  * 

Under  the  personality  of  God  we  might  discuss  the 
entire  Old  Testament  doctrine  of  God.  For  personality 
is  an  inclusive  category  and  might  be  regarded  as  em- 
bracing all  the  attributes  that  can  properly  be  ascribed  to 
the  Deity.  But  some  of  these  attributes,  such  as  the  di- 
vine unity,  spirituality,  power,  holiness,  righteousness, 
and  love,  are  of  such  special  importance  that  we  deem  it 
best  to  reserve  a  separate  chapter  for  each.  Here  we  shall 
discuss  simply  the  general  idea  of  personality  and  some  of 
its  essential  implications. 

The  Old  Testament  does  not  raise  the  question  of  the 
divine  existence  or  the  question  as  to  the  possibility  of 
knowing  God.  These  are  philosophical  questions  that  did 
not  exist  for  the  ancient  Hebrew  mind.  That  God  or 
gods  existed  was  universally  assumed.     The  fool  might 


The  Book  of  Deuteronomy,  p.  52, 

51 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

say  in  his  heart  that  there  was  no  God/  but  in  saying  this 
he  did  not  mean  to  deny  the  actual  existence  of  God. 
What  he  meant  was  that  he  himself  in  his  own  life  took 
no  account  of  the  divine  existence;  he  lived  as  though 
there  were  no  God;  he  was  altogether  heedless  of  the 
outcome  of  his  evil  ways.^  In  a  word,  his  atheism  was 
practical,  not  theoretical.  And  such  an  atheism  is  in  the 
nature  of  the  case  immune  to  all  argument  except  that  of 
painful  experience.  Hence  the  Old  Testament  writers 
nowhere  attempt  to  prove  the  divine  existence.  They 
refer  now  and  then  to  the  wonders  of  creation,  the  glory 
and  beauty  of  nature,  as  evidence  of  the  power  and  wis- 
dom of  God,^  but  they  do  this  not  to  prove  that  there  is 
a  God  but  to  make  the  already  existent  belief  in  him 
warmer  and  heartier,  more  vivid  and  vital.  So  far  as  the 
unbeliever  was  concerned,  they  contented  themselves  with 
proclaiming  the  retributive  righteousness  of  God.  All 
who  forgot  him  and  disobeyed  his  will  would  certainly 
perish. 

In  the  same  way  the  knowledge  of  God  was  assumed. 
Agnosticism  in  the  modern  sense  of  the  term  had  no  place 
in  Hebrew  thought.  Religion  by  its  very  nature  implies 
that  God  has  revealed  himself,  and  this  conviction  lay  at 
the  root  of  Israelitic  life  and  belief.  Now  and  then  a 
voice  might  be  heard  like  that  of  Agur,  the  son  of  Jakeh,^" 
protesting  against  too  confident  a  knowledge  of  God. 
And  there  were  always  those  in  Israel  who  were  deeply 
conscious  of  the  limitations  of  human  thought  when  it 
came  to  the  things  of  God. 


'  Psa.  14.  I ;  53.  I. 

"  Psa.  10.  4;  Zeph.  i.  12. 

"  Isa.  40.  12,  26;  Psa.  8.  i ;  19.  i ;  104.  5-II. 

""Prov.  30.  1-4. 

52 


THE  PERSONALITY  OF  GOD 

"Canst  thou  by  searching  find  out  God  ? 
Canst  thou  find  out  the  Almighty  unto  perfection?"  ^^ 

"My  thoughts  are  not  your  thoughts,  neither  are  your 
ways  my  ways,  saith  Jehovah.  For  as  the  heavens  are 
higher  than  the  earth,  so  are  my  ways  higher  than  your 
ways,  and  my  thoughts  than  your  thoughts."  ^^  Even 
all  the  wonders  of  nature 

"are  but  the  outskirts  of  his  ways : 
And  how  small  a  whisper  do  we  hear  of  him ! 
But  the  thunder  of  his  power  who  can  understand?"  ^^ 

Limited,  however,  as  God's  revelation  of  himself  was, 
it  was  valid  so  far  as  it  went.  He  did  not  reveal  his 
inmost  nature  to  men.  Even  Moses  was  permitted  to  see 
only  the  back  of  God  and  not  his  face.^*  There  was  in 
Israel  a  general  feeling  that  man  could  not  see  God  and 
live.^^  Then,  too,  in  antiquity  what  men  were  primarily 
interested  in  was  not  the  nature  of  God,  but  his  will  and 
law.^^  If  they  knew  the  divine  purpose  and  the  divine 
requirements,  they  were  content.  And  this,  Israel  was 
confident,  had  been  revealed  to  them.  Their  possession 
of  the  Law  was  a  source  of  national  pride.  "What  great 
nation,"  they  asked,  "is  there  that  hath  a  god  so  nigh  unto 
them,  as  Jehovah  our  God  is  whensoever  we  call  upon 
him?  And  what  great  nation  is  there  that  hath  statutes 
and  ordinances  so  righteous  ?"  ^' 

As  the  existence  and  knowledge  of  God  were  assumed, 
so  also  was  his  personality.     There  was  no  pantheistic 

"Job  II.  7.  '°Judg.  13-  22 \  Isa.  6.  5. 

"Isa.  55.  8-9.  ''2  Kings  17.  26. 

'^  Job  26.  14.  "  Deut.  4-  7-8. 
"  Exod.  33.  20-23,  J- 

hi 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

philosophy  against  which  the  Old  Testament  writers  were 
forced  to  contend.  They  all  l:)elonged  to  what  Auguste 
Comte  termed  the  theological  stage  of  thought.  Ulti- 
mate existence  for  them  took  on  the  personal  form.  Will 
was  the  first  cause  of  all  things.  The  idea  of  an  imper- 
sonal law  or  power  not  ourselves  that  makes  for  right- 
eousness, such  as  Matthew  Arnold  substituted  for  the  God 
of  the  Old  Testament,  was  wholly  foreign  to  them. 

The  personality  of  God  is  implied  or  expressed  in  the 
Old  Testament  in  a  great  variety  of  ways.  But  there 
are  three  particular  forms  of  expressing  it  that  call  for 
special  attention.  The  first  is  the  personal  name,  "Je- 
hovah" or  "Yahweh."  It  is  now  well  known  that  "Je- 
hovah" is  a  hybrid  word,  made  up  of  the  consonants  of 
"Yahweh"  or  "Jahveh"  and  the  vowels  of  the  Hebrew 
word  for  "Lord,"  Adonay,  the  first  a  in  Adonay  being  in 
the  original  a  half-vowel,  which  after  3;  or  j,  according 
to  a  regular  law  of  the  language,  became  a  very  short  e. 
This  combination  grew  out  of  the  superstitious  reverence 
in  which  the  name  "Yahweh"  came  to  be  held  by  the  later 
Jews  and  which  led  them  to  eschew  its  use  altogether.  A 
trace  of  this  superstition  appears  as  early  as  the  book  of 
Amos,  where  in  a  pestilence  the  people  in  their  terror  are 
represented  as  saying  that  they  dare  not  make  mention  of 
the  name  of  Yahweh. ^^  Later  in  the  Old  Testament, 
as  in  the  second  book  of  the  Psalter,^^  and  in  Ecclesiastes, 
there  is  observable  a  tendency  to  use  instead  of  Yahweh 
the  general  name  for  God,  "Elohim."  This  tendency  to 
avoid  the  name  "Yahweh"  continued  to  become  more  and 
more  pronounced  until  finally  the  name  ceased  to  be  used 
at  all,  and  even  its  pronunciation  was   forgotten.      So 

'*6.  10. 

"  Psa.  42  to  72  or  perhaps  42  to  89. 

54 


THE  PERSONALITY  OF  GOD 

strong  apparently  was  the  feeling  on  this  point  in  some 
quarters  that  in  the  Septuagint  and  some  of  the  other 
versions  the  word  "blaspheme"  in  Lev.  24.  11,  16  was 
rendered  "name,"  so  that  the  text  was  made  to  impose  the 
death  penalty  upon  those  who  merely  named  the  divine 
name.  Wherever  the  sacred  Tetragram  (YHWH)  ap- 
peared in  the  biblical  text,  the  Jews  would  read  "Adonay," 
or  in  some  cases  "Elohim."  And  so  when  in  the  sixth 
or  seventh  century  of  our  era  vowel  points  were  added  to 
the  text  so  as  to  fix  the  vocalization,  the  vowels  of  Adonay 
were  attached  to  Yhwh  or  Jhvh  to  indicate  that  the  name 
was  to  be  read  "Adonay."  There  was  no  thought  whatso- 
ever of  pronouncing  the  name  "Yehowah"  or  "Jehovah." 
This  hybrid  form  did  not  arise  until  about  the  time  of  the 
Reformation. 

Concerning  the  origin  and  derivation  of  the  name 
"Yahweh"  there  is  wide  diversity  of  opinion.  In  two  of 
the  Pentateuchal  documents,  P  and  E,  its  introduction 
seems  to  be  attributed  to  Moses.  In  Exod.  6.  2-3  (P)  we 
read :  "And  God  spake  unto  Moses,  and  said  unto  him, 
I  am  Jehovah :  and  I  appeared  unto  Abraham,  unto  Isaac, 
and  unto  Jacob,  as  God  Almighty;  but  by  my  name  Je- 
hovah I  was  not  known  to  them."  And  in  Exod.  3.  13-15 
(E)  we  are  told  that  when  Moses  was  about  to  return 
from  Horeb  to  Egypt  he  was  uncertain  by  what  name  to 
designate  the  God  who  had  sent  him,  and  that  it  was  then 
that  the  name  "Yahweh"  was  revealed  to  him.  Consist- 
ently with  this  view  both  documents,  P  and  E,  avoid  the 
use  of  the  name  until  after  the  account  of  its  revelation 
to  Moses.  In  J,^*'  on  the  other  hand,  it  is  stated  that  way 
back  in  the  time  of  the  antediluvian  patriarch  Enosh  men 
began  to  call  upon  the  name  of  Yahweh.    And  J  himself 

''  Gen.  4.  26. 

55 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

uses  the  name  from  the  very  beginning  of  his  narrative  in 
the  second  chapter  of  Genesis.  What  the  exact  facts 
were,  lying  back  of  this  diverse  tradition,  is  not  easy  to 
determine.  Some,  such  as  A.  B.  Davidson,^^  seek  to 
harmonize  the  different  narratives  by  holding  that  while 
the  name  "Yahweh"  was  known  to  the  Hebrews  before 
the  time  of  Moses  it  did  not  receive  divine  sanction  till 
his  day.  Then  for  the  first  time  it  was  "appropriated  by 
God  and  authorized  as  part  of  his  manifestation  of  him- 
self." Others,  such  as  Kautzsch,^^  take  the  view  that 
Yahweh  before  the  time  of  Moses  was  "the  God  of  one  or 
more  tribes,  or  perhaps  the  God  of  one  particular  family," 
but  not  the  God  of  all  Israel.  Still  others — and  this  at 
present  seems  to  be  the  favorite  theory — hold  that  Yah- 
weh was  originally  a  Kenite  or  Midianite  deity  worshiped 
at  Sinai-Horeb,  and  that  he  was  made  God  of  Israel  by 
Moses.  That  the  name  "Yahxyeh"  in  any  case  antedated 
the  time  of  Moses  would  seem  clear.  Indeed,  some  As- 
syriologists  contend  "that  the  Babylonians  were  accus- 
tomed to  the  use  of  the  divine  name  'J^^'  or  'Jahveh' 
during  the  period  from  B.  C.  2000  to  B.  C.  1400,"  and 
that  traces  of  its  use  appear  also  elsewhere  outside  of 
and  independent  of  Israel. ^^  But  however  this  may  be, 
it  is  generally  admitted  that  it  was  Moses  who  first  gave 
special  significance  to  the  name.  It  was  he  who  made  the 
worship  of  Yahweh  in  Israel  "the  fundamental  basis  of 
the  national  existence  and  history,"  ^^  "the  conscious 
motive  power  of  an  organized  national  life."  ^^ 


"  The  Theology  of  the  Old  Testament,  p.  68. 
^'Hastings'  Dictionary  of  the  Bible,  vol.  v,  p.  627. 
■'  Rogers,  Religion  of  Babylonia  and  Assyria,  pp.  i 
"  Wellhausen,  History  of  Israel,  p.  433. 
'"'  Schultz,  Old  Testament  TJieology,  vol.  i,  p.  133. 

56 


THE  PERSONALITY  OF  GOD 

What  the  name  "Yahweh"  originally  meant  is  not 
known.  A  popular  etymology  is  given  in  Exod.  3.  13-15 
(E).  The  name  is  here  connected  with  the  verb  "to  be," 
and  is  interpreted  as  meaning  either  the  absolute  and 
sclf-subsistent  Being  or  the  really  existing  One  as  distin- 
guished from  other  gods,  or  perhaps  the  I-will-be-with 
thee  God,  a  God  who  is  ever  present  with  his  people.  The 
exact  thought  in  the  author's  mind  is  not  certain.  But 
this  etymology,  while  interesting  and  suggestive,  was 
probably  an  after-thought.  It  does  not  give  the  actual 
derivation  of  the  name.  Many  other  derivations  have 
consequently  been  suggested.  But  none  of  them  have 
been  able  to  command  general  assent ;  and  the  probability 
is  that  the  original  meaning  of  the  name  has  been  lost 
beyond  recovery. 

But  the  real  significance  of  the  name  "Yahweh"  does 
not  lie  in  its  meaning.  It  lies  in  the  fact  that  it  is  a  per- 
sonal name.  It  distinguishes  the  God  of  Israel  from  all 
other  deities.  He  is  not  one  of  a  class  but  a  distinct  and 
separate  Being.  He  has  an  individuality,  a  definite  char- 
acter of  his  own.  The  very  fact  that  he  bore  a  personal 
name  emphasized  this  distinctness  of  his  personality. 
And  when  finally  the  belief  in  the  existence  of  other  gods 
vanished  the  implications  of  the  personal  name  were  natu- 
rally carried  over  into  the  general  conception  of  Deity. 
God  became  as  personal  as  Yahweh,  and  the  name  "Yah- 
weh" was  used  to  express  the  special  differentiating  qual- 
ity of  the  true  God.^^  The  richness  of  Hebrew  mono- 
theism was  thus  due  in  no  small  measure  to  the  fact  that  it 
grew  out  of  an  earlier  monolatry.  The  personality  of 
Yahweh  made  more  concrete  and  more  real  the  personal- 
ity of  God. 

*'  See  Ezek.  25.  5,  7,  11,  17,  etc. 

57 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

Another  way  in  which  the  personality  of  God  comes  to 
expression  in  the  Old  Testament  is  by  the  use  of  anthro- 
pomorphisms. There  is  a  sense  in  which  the  mere  ascrip- 
tion of  personality  to  God  might  be  called  anthropomor- 
phic. For  we  arrive  at  the  idea  of  personality  through 
our  own  experience.  The  only  personality  that  we  know 
anything  directly  about  is  human  personality.  To  speak, 
then,  of  God  as  a  Person  is  to  think  of  him  under  the  hu- 
man form.  But  such  an  anthropomorphism  is  unavoid- 
able if  we  are  to  retain  a  conception  of  God  that  is  of  any 
religious  value.^^  Personality  is  the  highest  category  of 
which  we  know  anything.  "Superpersonal  existence"  is 
a  phrase  without  any  concrete  content,  an  unknown  quan- 
tity that  means  no  more  to  us  than  an  algebraic  xyn. 
If  we  are,  therefore,  to  think  of  God,  it  must  be  either 
under  the  personal  or  some  subpersonal  form.  There  is 
no  third  alternative.  But  even  though  this  be  admitted, 
the  idea  still  persists  that  personality  involves  limitation 
and  so  is  inapplicable  to  the  Infinite.  Some  other  term 
must  be  found  to  express  his  nature.  To  speak  of  him 
as  personal  is  anthropomorphic  in  the  derogatory  sense  of 
the  term.  But  this  idea  rests  upon  a  false  conception  of 
the  nature  of  personality.  Human  personality  is  limited, 
but  personality  as  such  involves  no  necessary  limitation. 
It  means  simply  self-knowledge  and  self-direction,  and  in 
this  sense  it  is  so  far  from  being  inconsistent  with  the 
nature  of  the  Absolute  that  "we  must  really  say  that 
complete  and  perfect  personality  can  be  found  only  in  the 
Infinite  and  Absolute  Being,  as  only  in  him  can  we  find 
that  complete  and  perfect  selfhood  and  self-expression 
which   is   necessary   to   the    fullness   of   personality."  ^* 

"  See  F.  L.  Strickland's  Foundations  of  Christian  Belief,  pp.  l62flf. 
'*  Bowne,  Personalism,  pp.  266f. 

58 


THE  PERSONALITY  OF  GOD 

The  conception  of  God  as  personal  is,  therefore,  not  an- 
thropomorphic in  the  sense  that  it  impHes  hmitation  of 
any  kind. 

But  there  are  in  the  Old  Testament  a  great  many 
anthropomorphic  expressions  that  do  seem  to  imply  a  dis- 
tinct limitation  of  the  Divine  Being.  We  may  classify 
these  anthropomorphisms  as  physical  and  psychological. 
On  the  one  hand,  God  is  spoken  of  as  though  he  possessed 
a  human  form  and  was  spatially  limited.  He  walks  in  the 
garden  in  the  cool  of  the  day;^^  he  comes  down  to  see  the 
building  of  the  tower  of  Babel  ;^°  he  visits  Abraham  ap- 
parently in  human  form.^^  He  speaks  to  him  and  his 
human  servants  generally  as  one  man  to  another.  We 
read  of  his  hand,  mouth,  eye,  ear,  arm.  The  organs  and 
physical  activities  of  men  in  general  are  attributed  to  him. 
And  so  also  with  the  inner  life  of  man.  Not  only  does 
Yahweh  have  the  essential  attributes  of  personality,  self- 
consciousness  and  self-direction,  but  the  passions  and 
changing  purposes  of  men  are  ascribed  to  him.  He  be- 
comes angry,  takes  vengeance  on  his  enemies,  laughs  to 
scorn  the  pride  of  men,  is  jealous,  hates  as  well  as  loves, 
and  also  repents. 

This  anthropomorphic  method  of  speech  runs  through- 
out practically  the  whole  of  the  Old  Testament.  A  cer- 
tain development  in  it  is,  however,  observable.  In  the 
preprophetic  period,  represented  by  the  J  and  E  docu- 
ments and  the  early  narratives  in  the  book  of  Judges, 
physical  anthropomorphisms  are  more  common  than  in 
later  times,  though  even  in  the  postexilic  period  they  are 
not  altogether  avoided.  They  are  found  in  P,^^  and  as 
late  as  the  second  century  B.  C.  God  appears  in  a  vision 

"  Gen.  3-  8,  J.  "  Gen.  i8,  J. 

*  Gen.  n.  5,  J.  *'  Gen.  17.  i,  22;  35.  9,  13. 

59 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

as  an  aged,  white-haired  man.^^  In  the  prophetic  period 
physical  anthropomorphisms  give  place  largely  to  the 
psychological.  These,  however,  abound.  The  prophets 
cling  tenaciously  to  this  style  of  speech.  They  ascribe  to 
the  Deity  human  passions  and  motives  with  the  utmost 
freedom.  And  it  is  somewhat  surprising,  as  A.  B.  David- 
son observes,  that  Deutero-Isaiah,  in  spite  of  his  very 
lofty  and  highly  developed  doctrine  of  God,  is  "more 
addicted  to  the  use  of  anthropomorphisms  than  any  other 
prophet."  ^^  In  the  postexilic  period  there  is  a  tendency 
to  moderate  at  least  the  use  of  anthropomorphisms. 
This  is  especially  evident  in  the  P  document.  We  need 
only  compare  its  account  of  creation^^  with  that  in  J^^  to 
see  that  it  represents  a  more  transcendental  conception  of 
God — a  conception  that  seeks  to  distinguish  him  from 
everything  material  and  to  free  him  from  the  limitations 
of  human  life  and  activity.  This  tendency  became  still 
more  pronounced  in  postcanonical  Judaism,  but  in  the 
New  Testament  we  have  a  return  to  the  warmer  anthro- 
pomorphic or  anthropopathic  speech  of  the  prophets. 

We  need  not  here  raise  the  question  as  to  how  far  the 
anthropomorphisms  of  the  Old  Testament  were  con- 
sciously metaphorical.  To  a  very  considerable  extent  they 
undoubtedly  were  such.  The  very  variety  of  the  forms 
under  which  the  divine  manifestations  and  activities  are 
represented  makes  this  evident.  But  at  the  same  time  it  is 
equally  clear  that  the  current  conceptions  of  the  Deity 
were  such  that  many  things  could  then  be  said  literally  of 
him  which  to-day  would  have  to  be  understood  in  a  figur- 


'"'  Dan.  7.  9. 

^*  Theology  of  the  Old  Testament,  p.  174. 

^  Gen.  I. 

^  Gen.  2-3. 

60 


THE  PERSONALITY  OF  GOD 

ative  or  accommodated  sense.  What  we  are,  however, 
here  concerned  about  is  not  to  determine  the  extent  of  the 
Hteral  and  the  metaphorical  in  the  Old  Testament  use  of 
anthropomorphisms,  but  to  point  out  the  fact  that  the 
great  purpose  actually  served  by  these  anthropomor- 
phisms is  to  emphasize  the  personality  of  God.  He  is  a 
living,  acting  Being,  a  Being  touched  with  the  feeling  of 
our  infirmities.  He  does  not  stand  apart  from  men  but 
enters  in  the  most  intimate  way  into  their  experiences. 
He  counsels  them,  commands  them,  blesses  them,  punishes 
them.  In  a  word,  he  is  the  great  outstanding  fact  of  their 
lives.  This  truth  it  is  that  lies  back  of  the  biblical  use 
of  anthropomorphisms  and  is  enforced  by  them.  In  no 
other  way  could  the  personality  of  God  at  that  time  have 
been  adequately  and  effectively  expressed.  Concrete  con- 
ceptions and  concrete  modes  of  speech,  such  as  we  find 
in  the  anthropomorphisms  of  the  Old  Testament,  were 
the  only  ones  that  could  then  be  fully  understood. 

A  third  way  in  which  the  Old  Testament  brings  out  the 
idea  of  the  personality  of  God  is  by  its  teaching  concern- 
ing his  free  relation  to  nature  and  history.  Freedom  and 
self-direction  is  an  essential  constituent  of  personality. 
Wherever  we  have  freedom  and  self -consciousness  we 
have  a  personal  being.  It  is  here  that  the  dividing  line  is 
drawn  between  personalism  on  the  one  hand  and  all 
impersonal  systems  of  thought  on  the  other.  Necessity 
is  the  characteristic  of  the  latter,  and  freedom  with  its 
implication  of  self-consciousness  the  characteristic  of  the 
former.  In  the  Old  Testament  the  ascription  of  freedom 
to  the  Deity  was,  of  course,  instinctive  and  immediate. 
He  was  looked  upon  as  sustaining  the  same  relation  to  the 
world  as  we  do  to  the  objects  with  which  we  deal.    The 

6i 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

question  as  to  when  Yahweh  came  to  be  thought  of  as 
Creator  of  the  world  need  not  here  be  raised.  It  will  be 
dealt  with  at  some  length  in  a  later  chapter.  Here  it  need 
only  be  remarked  that  even  if  Yahweh  during  the  earlier 
part  of  Israel's  history  was  looked  upon  as  an  intra-mun- 
dane  Being,  he  was  nevertheless  perfectly  free  in  his  rela- 
tion to  the  world.  He  may  not  at  that  time  have  been 
thought  of  as  holding  all  the  forces  of  nature  in  the 
hollow  of  his  hand,  but  so  far  as  his  power  extended  it 
was  regarded  as  exercised  with  perfect  freedom.  And 
this  was,  if  anything,  still  more  the  case  when  he  came  to 
be  thought  of  as  creator  of  all  the  world.  The  heavens 
and  the  earth  were  no  necessary  emanations  from  his 
being.  They  were  his  free  acts,  the  work  of  his  fingers. 
He  spake,  and  the  ordered  universe  began  to  be.  Both 
animate  and  inanimate  beings  were  the  product  of  his 
word.  And  if  so,  it  was  self-evident  to  the  Old  Testa- 
ment writers  that  he  must  be  not  only  as  free,  but  also  as 
truly  conscious  as  the  beings  he  has  made. 

"He  that  planteth  the  ear,  shall  he  not  hear? 
He  that  formed  the  eye,  shall  he  not  see?"  ^"^ 

This  free  intelligence  of  the  Deity  manifest  in  the  work 
of  creation  was,  if  anything,  still  more  manifest  in  his 
relation  to  history.  For  in  history  purpose  reveals  itself 
more  readily  than  in  nature.  No  doubt  there  was  a  pur- 
pose in  creation.  God  formed  the  earth,  we  read,  "to  be 
inhabited."  ^^  But  it  is  in  history  that  we  are  able  to  trace 
most  easily  a  divine  plan.  And  so  it  was  here  that  the  free 
guiding  hand  of  Yahweh  manifested  itself  most  distinctly. 

"'  Psa.  94.  9. 
•^  Isa.  45.  18. 

62 


THE  PERSONALITY  OF  GOD 

We  need  not  at  this  point  raise  the  question  as  to  when 
the  idea  of  a  world  purpose  was  first  ascribed  to  Yahweh. 
This  topic  will  engage  our  attention  in  a  subsequent 
chapter.  Here  it  suffices  to  point  out  that  no  matter  how 
limited  Yahweh's  outlook  at  the  first  may  have  been,  he 
was  never  lacking  in  a  purpose  or  plan.  From  the  very 
beginning  he  was  thought  of  as  having  purposed  good 
concerning  Israel.  This  purpose  no  doubt  in  the  course 
of  the  centuries  came  to  be  thought  of  in  broader,  clearer, 
and  more  spiritual  terms,  but  as  a  purpose  it  was  dis- 
tinct from  the  outset,  and  as  such  implied  the  free  rela- 
tion of  Yahweh  to  human  history.  In  this  connection  it 
may  be  pointed  out  that  the  idea  of  a  series  of  world- 
cycles,  so  persistent  in  all  Eastern  thought,  failed  to  gain 
lodgment  in  Israel.  The  author  of  Ecclesiastes  appar- 
ently accepted  it,  and  his  pessimism  was  to  some  extent 
the  outcome  of  it.  "That  which  hath  been,"  he  says,  "is 
that  which  shall  be;  and  that  which  hath  been  done  is 
that  which  shall  be  done :  and  there  is  no  new  thing  under 
the  sun."  ^^  But  in  the  teaching  of  the  prophets  and  in 
Hebrew  thought  in  general  the  idea  found  no  place.  And 
the  reason  was  the  strong  sense  of  the  divine  will  and  per- 
sonality that  prevailed  in  ancient  Israel.  No  supreme 
Person  could  tolerate  the  thought  of  an  unending  series 
of  recurrent  cycles.  Personality  must  have  an  ultimate 
goal,  an  end  to  be  attained.  And  so  Hebrew  thought  in- 
troduced into  the  ancient  scheme  of  world-cycles  the  idea 
of  development.  The  present  order  would  come  to  an 
end,  but  it  would  be  succeeded  by  another  of  a  higher 
character.  There  would  be  no  mere  return  of  the  present 
cycle,  but  a  step  forward,  progress.  This  great  thought 
we  owe  to  the  Hebrews,  and  owe  it  especially  to  "the 

''  I.  9. 

63 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

strong  sense  of  personality,  human  and  divine,  which 
characterized  all  the  faith  of  the  prophets."  ^" 

The  freedom  of  God  in  his  relation  to  nature  and  his- 
tory is  implied  practically  everywhere  throughout  the 
Old  Testament,  but  it  is  particularly  clear  in  connection 
with  the  idea  of  miracle.  There  are  two  periods  in  Is- 
rael's history  during  which  miracles  are  represented  as 
especially  common.  The  first  was  in  the  time  of  Moses 
when  the  nation  was  created  and  established  upon  a  reli- 
gious foundation,  the  other  was  during  the  great  revival 
connected  with  the  names  of  Elijah  and  Elisha.  But  mir- 
acles were  by  no  means  confined  to  these  two  periods. 
They  belonged  to  Old  Testament  history  as  a  whole.  The 
canonical  prophets  say  very  little  concerning  them,  but  it 
is  evident  that  they  believed  firmly  in  their  possibility. 
When  Ahaz  was  apparently  hesitating,  uncertain  whether 
to  accept  Isaiah's  assurance  of  the  divine  help,  the  prophet 
turned  to  him  and  said,  "Ask  thee  a  sign  of  Jehovah  thy 
God;  ask  it  either  in  the  depth,  or  in  the  height  above."  ^^ 
"Tremendous  words,"  says  Cornill,  "a  belief  in  God  of 
such  intensity  as  to  appear  to  us  men  of  modern  times 
fanatical."  ^^  It  has  even  been  suggested  that  it  was 
fortunate  for  the  prophet  that  the  king  did  not  take  him 
at  his  word.  Had  he  done  so,  the  promised  sign  might 
not  have  been  forthcoming.  But  whatever  may  be  our 
opinion  on  that  point,  there  was  no  doubt  in  the  prophet's 
mind,  nor  apparently  in  that  of  the  king.  Both  believed 
that  God  stood  ready  to  perform  a  miracle  at  any  time  if 
the  occasion  should  demand  it.  And  this  was  the  common 
belief  of  the  day. 

*"  A,  C.  Welch,  The  Religion  of  Israel  under  the  Kingdom,  p.  260. 

"  Isa.  7.  II. 

*'■'  The  Prophets  of  Israel,  p.  62. 

64 


THE  PERSONALITY  OF  GOD 

Miracle,  it  is  true,  did  not  have  the  same  significance 
for  the  ancient  mind  that  it  has  for  us.  Nature  was 
not  then  thought  of  as  a  fixed  and  inflexible  order  as  it 
is  to-day.  A  certain  uniformity  in  its  processes  was,  of 
course,  observed,  and  this  was  recognized  as  an  estab- 
lished fact :  "While  the  earth  remaineth,  seedtime  and 
harvest,  and  cold  and  heat,  and  summer  and  winter, 
and  day  and  night  shall  not  cease."  *^  But  along  with 
this  established  order  large  room  was  left  for  the  ex- 
traordinary and  miraculous,  and  the  established  order 
itself  was  not  thought  of  as  offering  any  resistance  to 
the  divine  will.  There  was  consequently  no  inherent  dif- 
ficulty in  the  idea  of  miracle.  Indeed,  miracles  need  not 
necessarily  point  to  Yahweh  as  their  source.  A  false 
prophet  might  perform  them,  and  in  that  case  the  peo- 
ple are  warned  not  to  be  led  astray.  They  are  told,  by 
implication  at  least,  that  the  self-attesting  power  of  truth 
is  more  important  than  any  outward  sign.^'*  But  while 
miracle  did  not  have  the  same  significance  for  the  ancient 
mind  that  it  has  for  us,  the  belief  in  its  possibility  served 
essentially  the  same  purpose  as  it  does  to-day.  It  made 
vivid  and  concrete  the  thought  of  God's  free  relation  to 
the  world,  and  so  gave  definiteness  and  distinctness  to  the 
conception  of  his  personality.  He  is  no  blind  force  of 
nature,  no  vague  spiritual  presence,  no  abstract  principle, 
but  a  living  personal  Being,  who  distinguishes  himself 
from  the  world  which  he  has  made,  freely  communicates 
himself  to  his  children,  and  by  his  sovereign  will  guides 
the  course  of  nature  and  history, 

Schultz,  writing  thirty  years  or  so  ago,  says  that  "the 


Gen.  8.  22,  J. 
'Deut.  13.  1-3. 

65 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

tendency  in  the  newer  theology,  which  inclines  to  a  less 
definitely  personal  conception  of  God  feels  clearly  enough 
its  antagonism  to  the  Mosaic  idea  of  God,  and  lets  this 
be  seen  in  its  depreciation  of  the  Old  Testament. ^^  But 
since  that  time  there  has  been  a  marked  drift  of  thought 
in  the  opposite  direction.  "One  of  the  encouraging  signs 
of  present-day  religious  thinking,"  as  F.  J.  McConnell 
says,  "is  the  movement  away  from  the  God  of  the  abstract 
to  the  God  of  the  concrete,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  con- 
nection with  the  concrete  means  limitation."^^  And  with 
this  tendency  there  has  gone  a  renewed  appreciation  of  the 
Old  Testament.  It  is  coming  to  be  felt  that  "the  tenden- 
cies of  modern  philosophy  support  the  religious  ideas  of 
the  Old  Testament."  *"  Auguste  Comte  distinguished 
three  stages  in  the  history  of  human  thought :  the  theolog- 
ical, "when  all  phenomena  are  referred  to  wills,  either  in 
things  or  beyond  them" ;  the  metaphysical,  when  phe- 
nomena are  explained  "by  abstract  conceptions  of  being, 
substance,  cause,  and  the  like";  and  the  positive,  when 
"men  give  up  all  inquiry  into  metaphysics  as  bootless,  and 
content  themselves  with  discovering  and  registering  the 
uniformities  of  coexistence  and  sequence  among  phe- 
nomena." According  to  this  scheme,  God  is  first  con- 
ceived of  as  personal,  is  then  reduced  to  some  impersonal 
principle  or  abstraction,  and  finally  is  given  up  altogether 
as  an  object  of  inquiry.  But  the  last  two  stages  have 
proven  unsatisfactory,  and  so  we  are  witnessing  a  return 
to  the  first,  the  stage  to  which  the  Old  Testament  belongs. 
Personality  is  again  being  restored  to  its  central  place  in 


*^  Old  Testament  Theology,  vol.  ii,  pp.  I03f. 

**  The  Increase  of  Faith,  p.  78. 

"  W.  H.  Robinson,  The  Religious  Ideas  of  the  Old  Testament, 

226. 

66 


THE  PERSONALITY  OF  GOD 

human  thought,  but  with  a  difference.  The  ancients  were 
incHned  to  look  upon  caprice  and  arbitrariness  as  neces- 
sary factors  in  personaHty  or  will.  And  so  God  was 
thought  of  as  more  or  less  arbitrary  and  capricious  in  his 
relation  to  the  world.  Even  the  Old  Testament  does  not 
altogether  succeed  in  rising  above  this  tendency.  We  see 
it  in  the  unreasonable  exclusiveness  and  undue  hanker- 
ing after  the  miraculous,  characteristic  of  the  postexilic 
period.  But  since  that  time  "we  have,"  as  Bowne  says, 
"learned  the  lesson  of  law,  and  we  now  see  that  law  and 
will  must  fee  united  in  our  thought  of  the  world.  Thus 
man's  earliest  metaphysics  reemerges  in  his  latest;  but 
enlarged,  enriched,  and  purified  by  the  ages  of  thought 
and  experience."  ^* 

^^  Personalism,  Preface,  pp.  v-vii. 


67 


CHAPTER  III 

THE  UNITY  OF  GOD 

Unity  as  applied  to  the  Deity  has  a  double  significa- 
tion. It  means  that  he  is  one,  that  he  does  not  differen- 
tiate himself  into  a  number  of  local  and  independent 
manifestations;  and  it  means  also  that  he  is  only,  that 
there  is  no  other  god.  In  the  former  sense  the  unity  of 
God  is  an  implication  of  his  personality,  and  stands  op- 
posed to  pantheism;  in  the  latter  sense  it  denies  poly- 
theism, and  asserts  the  rule  of  one  supreme  will  and  intel- 
ligence in  the  world.  In  both  senses  the  unity  of  God  is 
taught  in  the  Old  Testament.  The  famous  saying  in 
Deut.  6.  4,  "Jehovah  our  God  is  one  Jehovah,"  embodies 
both  ideas.  It  asserts  both  the  oneness  and  the  uniqueness 
of  Yahweh.  He  is  one,  a  unitary  Being,  by  way  of  con- 
trast with  the  multiplicity  of  Baals,  and  he  is  unique, 
the  only  true  God,  by  way  of  contrast  with  the  current 
belief  in  many  gods.  Both  monotheism  and  monoyahw- 
ism  constitute  thus  the  doctrine  of  the  Shema,'^  the  saying 
that  became  the  watchword  of  Judaism. 

Yahweh  as  a  Unitary  Personality 

The  conception  of  Yahweh  as  a  distinct  and  indivisible 

1  personality  dates  from  the  beginning  of  Israel's  history. 

\  From  the  time  of  Moses  on  Yahweh  was  thought  of  as  a 

single  and  unitary  Being.    But  at  the  outset  this  was  spon- 

'  Shcma  is  the  Hebrew  word  for  "hear,"  with  which  Deut.  6.  4 
begins. 

68 


THE  UNITY  OF  GOD 

taneous,  intuitive.  No  stress  was  laid  on  the  fact  of  his 
unity.  The  fact  was  simply  taken  for  granted,  assumed 
as  a  constituent  element  in  his  personality.  As  we  are 
conscious  of  our  own  unity  and  identity,  so  it  naturally 
was  with  him.  Later,  however,  as  we  see  from  Deut.  6.  4, 
this  instinctive  belief  took  on  a  more  positive  character. 
It  came  to  be  looked  upon  as  a  point  of  special  religious 
significance,  and  was  made  a  distinctive  element  in  the 
true  Israelite's  creed. 

The  reason  for  this  emphasis  on  the  unity  of  Yahweh  is 
to  be  found  in  the  religious  conditions  that  arose  among 
the  Hebrews  after  their  settlement  in  Canaan.  They  were 
there  confronted  with  a  widespread  worship  of  Baal,  or, 
rather,  Baals;  for  "Baal"  was  not  a  proper  name.  It 
did  not  designate  the  supreme  deity  of  the  Canaanites. 
Nor  is  it  probable  that  there  was  originally  one  god  by 
the  name  of  Baal,  a  sun-god,  who  was  later  differentiated 
into  a  number  of  local  Baals. ^  "Baal"  was  a  common 
Semitic  title  applied  to  the  deity.  It  meant  owner  or  lord, 
and  designated  any  particular  numen,  or  deity,  as  inhabit- 
ant or  owner  of  a  place.  In  this  sense  it  was  in  common 
use  among  the  Canaanites  and  was  applied  by  them  to  the 
local  numina  whom  they  worshiped.  These  numina  were 
originally  distinct  from  each  other.  But  the  fact  that  the 
same  title  was  applied  to  them  all,  and  the  further  fact 
that  they  were  apparently  thought  of  as  quite  similar  in 
character,  tended  naturally  to  a  blurring  of  their  individ- 
uality. They  came  to  be  thought  of  as  a  group  or  class 
rather  than  as  distinct  individuals,  and  at  times  they  seem 
to  have  been  merged  into  a  single  divinity.  We  read,  for 
instance,  in  the  Old  Testament  not  infrequently  of  "the 

'  For  a  recent  defense  of  this  view,  see  Eduard  Konig,  Geschichte 
der  alttestamentlichen  Religion,  p.  255. 

69 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

Baalim"  and  at  other  times  of  "Baal,"  not  the  Baal  of  any 
particular  place,  but  Baal  in  general.  Evidently,  there  was 
no  little  confusion  of  thought  on  the  subject  in  the  pop- 
ular mind.  The  local  Baals  had  to  a  considerable  extent 
lost  their  unity  and  individuality.  At  the  same  time  their 
persistence  in  the  popular  thought  made  it  impossible  to 
hold  to  the  strict  unity  and  individuality  of  a  supreme 
Baal.  The  result  was  a  pantheistically  inclined  nature- 
worship. 

Such  was  the  state  of  thought  into  which  Israel  was  in- 
troduced in  Canaan,  and  it  was  against  it  as  a  background 
that  the  unity  of  Yahweh  came  finally  to  be  emphasized. 
At  first  the  Israelites  after  gaining  possession  of  the  land 
substituted  Yahweh  for  the  local  Baals  and  spoke  of  him 
as  the  Baal  of  the  land.  We  have,  for  instance,  such  a 
name  as  Bealiah,^  which  means  "Yahweh  is  Baal" ;  and 
according  to  Hosea^  the  people  regularly  addressed  Yah- 
weh as  Baali,  "My  Baal."  There  are  also  a  number  of 
names  of  early  Israelites  from  distinguished  families, 
which  are  compounded  with  Baal,  such  as  Jerubbaal 
(Gideon),  Ishbaal  (son  of  Saul),  Meribbaal  (son  of 
Jonathan),  Beeliada  (son  of  David).  Later  Baal  came  to 
be  regarded  as  a  heathenish  name,  and  hence  was  fre- 
quently changed  by  copyists  to  Boshcth  ("shame"),  so 
that  we  read  Jerubbesheth,  Ishbosheth,  and  Mephibosh- 
eth.  Beeliada  was  apparently  changed  to  Eliada,  El 
("god")  taking  the  place  of  "Baal."  ^  But  originally 
there  was  manifestly  no  such  aversion  to  the  use  of  the 
name  "Baal."  In  the  time  of  Saul  and  David  it  was  cus- 
tomary in  the  best  circles  to  speak  of  Yahweh  as  Baal. 

"  I  Chron.  12.  5. 

*2.  16. 

^  1  Chron.  14.  7 ;  2  Sam.  5.  16. 

70 


THE  UNITY  OF  GOD 

This,  however  was  a  dangerous  practice.  It  tended  to 
obliterate  the  distinction  between  Yahweh-worship  and 
Baal-worship,  and  tended  also  to  confuse  Yahweh  with 
the  local  Baals. 

Exactly  what  form  this  confusion  took  is  a  matter  of 
difference  of  opinion.  Some^  hold  that  the  syncretism 
never  became  so  complete  that  the  original  distinction 
between  Yahwism  and  Baalism  was  forgotten.  The  local 
Baals,  although  absorbed  to  a  certain  extent  in  Yahweh, 
never  ceased  to  be  distinguished  from  him.  There  was 
in  the  popular  thought  no  conscious  antithesis  between  the 
two,  between  the  worship  of  Yahweh  and  that  of  the 
Baals,  but  they  were  never  so  completely  identified  that  the 
Baals  were  regarded  as  having  gone  out  of  existence. 
Others,^  however,  take  the  view  that  the  local  Baals  were 
at  an  early  date  completely  supplanted  by  Yahweh.  The 
rites  and  conceptions  associated  with  them  passed  over 
into  the  worship  of  Yahweh,  and  they  themselves  ceased 
to  exist.  They  were  completely  absorbed  in  Yahweh. 
This  absorption,  however,  did  not  take  place  without  its 
having  a  marked  effect  on  the  popular  conception  of  Yah- 
weh. He  had  taken  the  place  of  the  local  Baals,  but  in  so 
doing  had  lost  his  own  unity.  Just  as  the  absorption  of 
ancient  local  divinities  in  Italy  by  the  Virgin  Mary  led  to 
the  belief  that  there  were  different  Madonnas,  so  it  came 
to  be  believed  in  Israel  that  there  were  a  number  of  Yah- 
wehs.  The  Baalim,  to  which  Hosea  refers,  were  reallv  in  , 
the  popular  thought  local  Yahwehs.  And  when  we  read  of 
certain  altars  that  were  given  the  names  Yahweh-yireh,^ 

*  See  Konig,  Geschichte  der  alttestamentlichen  Religion,  p.  363. 
^See   Bade,    The    Old   Testament   in   the   Light   of   To-day,  pp. 

201-209;  Peters,  The  Religion  of  the  Hebrews,  pp.  159^-.  218;  H.  P. 
Smith,  The  Religion  of  Israel,  pp.  i83f. 

*  Gen.  22.  14. 

71 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

Yahweh-nissi^  and  Yahweh-shalom/^  we  are  not  to  sup- 
pose that  these  names  were  simply  felicitous  designations 
of  different  sanctuaries.  They  point  to  local  differentia- 
tions of  Yahweh.  Likewise  Absalom's  request  that  he  be 
permitted  to  pay  his  vow  to  Yahweh  in  Hebron^^  im- 
plies that  the  Yahweh  of  Hebron  was  looked  upon  as  a 
different  being  from  the  Yahweh  of  Jerusalem.  And  so 
also  there  was  a  distinct  Yahweh  in  Shiloh.^^ 

That  such  a  differentiation  of  Yahweh  into  a  number 
of  local  and  independent  Yahwehs  may  have  taken  place, 
especially  among  the  ignorant,  is  not  improbable.  But  to 
say  that  the  people  in  the  seventh  century  B.  C.  were 
"given  over  to  polyyahwism"^^  is  to  go  far  beyond  what 
the  evidence  warrants.  The  fact  is  that  the  eighth-cen- 
tury prophets  did  not  distinguish  clearly  between  a  hea- 
thenish worship  of  Yahweh  and  the  worship  of  heathen 
gods.  One  in  their  sight  was  as  reprehensible  as  the 
other.  And  it  cannot  in  every  instance  be  determined 
with  certainty  which  evil  they  were  condemning.  The 
popular  religion  was  probably  a  mixture  of  both.  In 
any  case  there  was  current  among  the  people  a  species 
of  polytheism,  whether  polybaalism  or  polyyahwism 
does  not  matter  much.  Either  would  have  furnished 
an  adequate  occasion  for  the  assertion  of  the  unity  of 
Yahweh.  He  was  one  as  over  against  the  multiplicity  of 
Baals,  and  he  was  also  one  as  over  against  the  belief  that 
there  was  a  plurality  of  Yahwehs. 

This  unity  of  Yahweh  was  grounded  deep  in  the  past 


Exod.  17.  15,  E. 
"  Judg.  6.  24. 
'2  Sam.  15.  7. 
^  I  Sam.  I.  3. 
'  Bade,  The  Old  Testament  in  the  Light  of  To-day,  p.  208. 

72 


THE  UNITY  OF  GOD 

history  of  the  people.  It  was  one  Yahweh  that  had  de- 
Hvered  the  Israelites  from  Egypt,  and  it  was  one  Yahweh 
that  had  been  their  God  throughout  their  entire  national 
history.  The  very  unity  of  the  nation  carried  with  it  the 
unity  of  Yahweh.  Indeed,  the  division  of  the  monarchy 
in  no  way  interfered  with  it.  There  is  no  suggestion  any- 
where that  the  Yahweh  of  the  northern  kingdom  was  a 
different  being  from  the  Yahweh  of  Judah.  And  in  view 
of  this  fact  there  certainly  was  no  reason  why  the  exist- 
ence of  different  sanctuaries  should  necessarily  be  con- 
strued as  inconsistent  with  Yahweh's  unity.  In  Israel's 
oldest  collection  of  laws  we  are  told  that  in  every  place 
where  Yahweh  causes  his  name  to  be  remembered,  that 
is,  manifests  himself,  there  he  will  come  to  his  people  and 
bless  them.^^  And  this  must  have  been  the  general  belief 
among  the  Israelites.  The  pronounced  nationalism  of 
their  religion  made  it  impossible  that  there  should  at  any 
time  have  been  any  serious  peril  from  polyyahwism.  The 
prophets  nowhere  betray  any  fear  of  it.  What  they  saw 
in  the  corrupt  worship  of  their  time  was  not  so  much  a 
compromise  of  the  unity  of  Yahweh's  being  as  a  com- 
promise of  the  unity  of  his  character.  The  current  wor- 
ship, though  probably  carried  on  for  the  most  part  in  the 
name  of  Yahweh, ^^  was  so  unworthy  of  his  ethical  and 
spiritual  nature  that  it  was  indistinguishable  from  the 
worship  of  the  conquered  Baals.  To  have  tolerated  such 
a  worship  would  have  been  to  destroy  the  spiritual  unity 
of  Yahweh.  And  so  the  prophets  denounced  it  as  a  wor- 
ship of  other  gods. 

It  is  from  this  point  of  view  also  that  the  Deuteron- 
omic  centralization  of  worship  in  Jerusalem  is  to  be 

"Exod.  20.  24. 
'*  See  Hos.  9.  3-5. 

73 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

understood.  What  was  feared  from  the  numerous  sanc- 
tuaries throughout  the  land  was  not  so  much  the  differen- 
tiation of  Yahweh  into  a  number  of  local  Yahwehs  as  the 
growing  corruption  of  his  worship.  The  existence  of  but 
one  sanctuary  might  perhaps  have  helped  the  popular  im- 
agination to  grasp  the  idea  of  the  unity  of  Yahweh's 
being.  But  the  real  motive  lying  back  of  the  centraliza- 
tion of  worship  was  not  the  desire  to  establish  the  abstract 
doctrine  of  the  divine  unity,  but  the  desire  to  purify  the 
public  worship,  which  had  been  seriously  corrupted,  espe- 
cially at  the  unregulated  local  sanctuaries.  In  this  work 
of  purification  the  recognition  of  the  unity  of  the  Divine 
Being  would  no  doubt  have  its  value.  It  would  put  an 
end  to  whatever  tendencies  there  may  have  been  to  poly- 
baalism  or  polyyahwism,  and  so  would  improve  religious 
conditions  in  general,  for  these  tendencies  were  closely 
bound  up  with  the  corrupt  worship  at  the  high  places. 
But,  like  the  prophets,  what  the  Deuteronomists  were 
primarily  interested  in  was  not  the  unity  of  the  divine 
being  but  the  unity  of  the  divine  character.  The  latter 
no  doubt  implied  the  former.  But  we  understand  the 
true  significance  of  the  Deuteronomic  declaration  that 
Yahweh  is  one,  only  when  we  make  the  practical  motive 
lying  back  of  it  primary,  only  when  we  see  that  the 
real  evils  that  prompted  it  were  ethical.  It  was  not  the 
worship  of  local  divinities  in  the  name  of  Yahweh  or 
along  with  Yahweh  that  constituted  the  great  evil  of  the 
day,  but  the  fact  that  this  worship  was  unspi ritual  and 
immoral,  and  so  contradicted  the  true  ethical  unity  of 
Israel's  God. 

In  this  connection  it  may  be  noted  that  there  were  no 
sexual  distinctions  in  the  Hebrew  idea  of  God.  Yah- 
weh had  no  feminine  counterpart  such  as  Baal  had  in 

74 


THE  UNITY  OF  GOD 

Astarte  or  Ishtar.  This  is  a  very  significant  fact.  "Is- 
rael," says  Cornill,  "is  the  only  nation  we  know  of  that 
never  had  a  mythology,  the  only  people  who  never  differ- 
entiated the  Deity  sexually.  So  deep  does  this  trait  ex- 
tend that  the  Hebrew  language  is  not  even  competent  to 
form  the  word  'goddess.'  Where  the  book  of  Kings  tells 
us  of  the  supposed  worship  of  idols  by  Solomon,  we  find 
written:  'Astarte,  the  god  of  the  Phoenicians.'  Not  even 
the  word  'goddess'  is  conceivable  to  the  Israelites,  much 
less  the  thing  itself."  ^^  This  statement  may  be  somewhat 
extreme.  It  is  doubtful  if  the  difference  between  Israel 
and  other  peoples  on  this  point  was  so  absolute  as  Cornill 
makes  out.  The  Hebrew  word  for  "God"  while  mas- 
culine in  form  need  not  have  excluded  the  feminine  idea, 
and  the  contact  of  the  Hebrews  with  the  Canaanites  and 
other  Semitic  peoples  must,  it  would  seem,  have  accus- 
tomed them  to  the  idea  that  there  were  goddesses  as  well 
as  gods.  The  frequent  references  in  the  Old  Testament 
to  the  Ashtaroth  would  seem  to  make  this  clear.  Indeed, 
it  is  not  impossible  that  the  Israelites  themselves  had  orig- 
inally, like  the  Arabs,  female  deities  of  their  own.  But 
however  this  may  be,  it  can  hardly  be  questioned  that 
from  the  time  of  Moses  on  the  unity  of  Yahweh  was  con- 
ceived so  clearly  and  held  so  firmly  that  it  permanently 
excluded  the  idea  of  a  feminine  counterpart.  Female 
deities  were  no  doubt  worshiped  here  and  there  in  Israel, 
and  the  immoral  rites  associated  wnth  them  were,  we 
know,  introduced  into  Israel  and  became  a  serious  evil. 
But  Yahweh  resisted  all  tendencies  to  amalgamation  with 
any  of  them.  He  remained  lone  and  solitary.  And  this 
fact  gave  to  Israelitic  religion  a  moral  purity  that  would 
otherwise  have  been  impossible.  It  did  not  save  the  pop- 
'"  The  Prophets  of  Israel,  p.  23. 

75 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

ular  religion  from  the  contaminating  influences  of  the 
neighboring  nature-faiths,  and  did  not  exclude  altogether 
the  grossly  sensual  practices  that  grew  up  among  the 
Canaanites,  Phoenicians,  Aramaeans,  and  Babylonians  as 
a  result  of  the  sexual  differentiation  of  the  deity;  but  it 
did  give  to  the  Israelites  an  inner  power  of  resistance  to 
these  evils  which  enabled  them  eventually  to  cast  them  out 
as  heathenish  and  unclean.  The  unity  of  Yahweh  was, 
therefore,  a  conception  of  no  little  moral  and  spiritual  sig- 
nificance in  the  religious  history  of  Israel. 

But  valuable  as  the  idea  of  the  strict  unity  of  the  Divine 
Personality  was  as  over  against  the  current  pantheistic 
and  polytheistic  nature-worship,  it  still  had  its  own  limi- 
tations. It  failed  permanently  to  provide  for  that  com- 
plexity and  richness  of  the  divine  nature  which  seems 
necessary  to  satisfy  the  deepest  needs  of  the  human  heart. 
And  so  in  the  course  of  time  there  grew  up  the  Christian 
doctrine  of  the  Trinity  or  Tri-unity.  In  view  of  the  im- 
portance of  this  doctrine,  the  question  naturally  arises  as 
to  whether  there  were  any  anticipations  of  it  in  the  Old 
Testament.  It  was  once  customary  to  find  an  allusion 
to  it  in  the  plural  form  of  the  pronoun  which  the  Deity 
in  several  instances  uses  in  referring  to  himself.  "Let 
us,"  he  says,  "make  man  in  our  image;"  ^"  "Let  us  go 
down,  and  there  confound  their  language"  ;^^  "Whom 
shall  I  send,  and  who  will  go  for  us?"  ^^  But  the  plural 
in  these  instances,  it  is  now  commonly  held,  is  either  a 
plural  of  majesty,  or,  wHat  is  more  probable,  a  reference 
to  the  court  of  heaven  by  which  Yahweh  was  regarded  as 

"  Gen.  I.  26,  P. 
"Gen.  II.  7,  J. 
"  Isa.  6.  8. 

76 


THE  UNITY  OF  GOD 

surrounded.  Other  supposed  indications  of  distinctions 
within  the  Godhead  are  found  in  such  conceptions  as  the 
"Angel  of  Yahweh,"  20  the  "Face"  or  "Presence  of  Yah- 
weh,"  21  the  "Name  of  Yahweh,"  22  ^^d  the  "Glory  of 
Yahweh."  ^^  How  far  we  have  in  these  conceptions  a  true 
hypostatizing  tendency  and  how  far  a  mere  personification 
of  certain  aspects  or  manifestations  of  the  Divine  Being  is 
difficult  to  determine.  At  times  the  Angel  of  Yahweh 
seems  clearly  distinguished  from  Yahweh  himself,  and  so 
also,  though  less  clearly,  his  Face  and  Name  and  Glory. 
But  these  conceptions,  whatever  hypostatic  distinctions 
may  have  been  implied  in  them,  developed  as  a  matter  of 
fact  into  nothing  definite.  They  may  be  regarded  as  cases 
of  arrested  growth. 

There  are  in  the  Old  Testament  three  other  conceptions 
that  made  a  much  deeper  impression  on  Jewish  and  Chris- 
tian thought.  These  are  "the  Spirit  of  God,"  "the  Word 
of  God,"  and  "the  Wisdom  of  God."  The  Spirit  of  God 
is  not  represented  as  a  distinct  personality  in  the  Old 
Testament,  but  the  beginnings  of  the  idea  are  there.^* 
The  Word  of  God  is  in  a  number  of  instances^^  person- 
ified, and  in  so  far  the  way  was  prepared  for  the  later 
doctrine  of  the  Logos.  Still  more  emphatically  is  this 
true  of  the  Wisdom  of  God.  Here  we  have  a  conception 
that  reaches  the  very  verge  of  a  true  hypostasis. 2^  In 
any  case  it  is  the  most  striking  and  distinct  of  the  Old 

'*Gen.  16.  II,  J;  21.  17,  E;  Judg.  6.  12;  Gen.  24.  7,  40,  J;  Exod. 
23.  20,  E;  33.  2. 

"  Exod.  33.  14,  J ;  Isa.  63.  9. 

"  Psa.  20.  I ;  44.  5 ;  54.  i ;  48.  10. 

-^  Ezek.  I.  27f . ;  3.  12 ;  9.  3 ;  10.  4 ;  Isa.  40.  S  ;  60.  i  f. 

"  Hag.  2.  5 ;  Zech.  4.  6;  Isa.  63.  lof. ;  48.  16. 

"Isa.  55.  II ;  Psa.  33.  6;  107.  20;  147.  15;  Deut.  8,  3. 

"Job28.  23ff.;  Prov.  8.  22ff. 

77 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

Testament  personifications.  We  have,  then,  in  the  Old 
Testament  a  number  of  tendencies  toward  the  estabHsh- 
ment  of  hypostatic  distinctions  in  the  divine  nature;  but 
these  tendencies  were  all  left  in  an  undeveloped  state, 
and  led  to  no  direct  enrichment  of  the  idea  of  God. 

Yahweh  as  Sole  Deity 

We  now  come  to  the  second  sense  in  which  the  di- 
vine unity  is  affirmed,  the  sense,  namely,  that  there  is  but 
one  God.  Here  the  Old  Testament  made  one  of  its  great- 
est contributions  to  the  world's  thought  and  faith.  The 
monotheism  of  Christianity  and  Mohammedanism,  as 
well  as  modern  Judaism,  is  a  direct  inheritance  from  the 
ancient  Hebrew  Scriptures.  It  is,  therefore,  a  matter  of 
special  interest  to  trace  the  development  of  Old  Testa- 
ment teaching  on  this  point. 

The  unity  of  the  Divine  Personality  was,  as  we  have 
seen,  apprehended  more  or  less  clearly  from  the  outset, 
but  the  sole  godhead  of  Yahweh  was  a  truth  that  was 
only  gradually  attained.  The  different  steps  in  this  de- 
velopment may  be  distinguished  with  a  fair  degree  of 
clearness.  We  begin  with  the  Mosaic  age.  It  was  to 
Moses,  as  we  have  seen,  that  the  establishment  of  Yah- 
weh-worship  was  due.  Previous  to  his  time  the  Israel- 
ites seem  to  have  been  polytheists.  On  one  of  the 
cuneiform  tablets  discovered  by  Winckler  at  Boghazkoj 
and  belonging  to  the  pre-Mosaic  age  we  read  of  "the 
gods"  of  the  Habiri  or  Hebrews,^^  and  in  Josh.  24.  2,  I4f. 
and  Ezek  20.  yi.,  24  we  are  told  that  both  in  Mesopotamia 
and  Egypt  the  Israelites  worshiped  other  gods.  The 
very  name  "Yahweh"  also  points  in  the  same  direction. 


Hugo  Gressmann,  Mose  and  seine  Zeit,  p.  425. 

78 


THE  UNITY  OF  GOD 

The  manifest  purpose  of  such  a  name  was  to  distinguish 
the  god  of  Israel  from  other  gods.  If  the  Hebrews  had 
not  believed  in  the  existence  of  other  deities,  there  would 
have  been  no  need  of  giving  a  personal  name  to  the  Di- 
vine Being  through  whom  they  were  delivered  from 
Egypt.  He  would  have  been  to  them  simply  God.  Then, 
too,  it  is  a  significant  fact  that  the  common  Hebrew  word 
for  "God,"  EloJiim,  is  plural  in  form.  This  plural,  it  is 
often  said,  was  not  numerical,  but  simply  enhancive  of 
the  idea  of  might,  a  plural  of  majesty.  And  this  was  no 
doubt  to  a  large  extent  true  of  later  usage.  But  originally 
the  plural  form  must  have  had  a  polytheistic  background. 
People  could  have  begun  to  use  the  plural  "gods"  to  ex- 
press the  idea  of  divinity  only  at  a  time  when  they  be- 
lieved in  the  existence  of  a  plurality  of  divine  beings. 
This  is  illustrated  by  the  Greek  use  of  thcoi  and  the  Latin 
use  of  dei.  The  plural,  Elohim,  points,  then,  back  to  an 
earlier  polytheistic  stage  of  belief.  And  this  stage  we 
naturally  locate  in  the  pre-Mosaic  period. 

What  Moses  did  was  to  put  monolatry  in  place  of  the 
earlier  polytheism.  He  did  not  deny  the  existence  of 
other  gods,  but  proclaimed  Yahweh  as  the  sole  god  of 
Israel.  He  did  not  say  that  there  was  but  one  God,  but 
insisted  that  it  was  Israel's  duty  to  have  but  one  God.^^ 
But  while  he  thus  did  not  teach  monotheism,  the  monol- 
atry he  established  was  an  important  step  in  that  direc- 
tion. And  what  made  it  such  was  the  intensity  of  devo- 
tion that  the  worship  of  Yahweh  called  forth.  Well- 
hausen  has  asked  why,  for  instance,  Chemosh  of  Moab 
did  not  become  the  God  of  righteousness  and  creator  of 
the  world  instead  of  Yahweh,  and  has  replied  that  a  satis- 

^*  Exod.  20.  3. 

79 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

factory  answer  cannot  be  given.^®  What  he  would  re- 
gard as  a  satisfactory  answer  we  do  not  know,  but  one 
answer  at  least  to  his  question  may  be  found  in  the  more 
passionate  devotion  that  must  have  characterized  the  Is- 
raelitic  worship  of  Yahweh.  Chemosh  may  have  been  the 
god  of  Moab  in  very  much  the  same  sense  as  Yahweh  was 
of  Israel,  and  yet  the  different  outcome  in  the  two  in- 
stances makes  it  evident  that  there  must  have  been  some 
difference  between  them.  And  the  difference  that  most 
naturally  suggests  itself  to  our  minds  is  a  difference  in  the 
degree  of  loyalty  that  the  two  deities  evoked.  There  must 
have  been  more  of  passion,  more  of  intensity,  in  the  wor- 
ship of  Yahweh  than  in  that  of  Chemosh.  For  passion 
is,  after  all,  the  mainspring  of  religious  development.  It 
is  not  so  much  new  ideas  that  give  rise  to  passion,  as  it  is 
passion  that  gives  rise  to  new  ideas.  Yahweh  in  a  mar- 
velous way  had  delivered  the  Israelites  from  their  op- 
pressors in  Egypt.  At  the  very  time  when  they  seemed 
doomed  to  destruction  he  had  rescued  them.  So  great 
was  this  deliverance  that  only  one  response  on  the  part  of 
the  people  seemed  adequate,  and  that  was  complete  devo- 
tion to  Yahweh  and  unlimited  confidence  in  him.  One 
who  had  wrought  so  remarkable  a  deliverance  in  the  past 
could  surely  be  trusted  to  meet  every  need  of  the  people  in 
the  future,  and  was,  therefore,  deserving  of  their  unques- 
tioning obedience. 

Such  was  the  attitude  of  mind  inculcated  by  Moses, 
and  in  it  we  have  the  germ  of  the  whole  subsequent  reli- 
gious development  in  Israel.  If  Yahweh  was  really  be- 
lieved to  be  equal  to  every  emergency,  it  followed  neces- 
sarily that  the  conception  of  his  being  would  expand  with 
the  expanding  needs   of   the   people,   until   finally   they 

^^  Kultur  dcr  Gcgenwart,  Th.  i,  Abtlg.  iv,  p.  15. 

80 


THE  UNITY  OF  GOD 

would  come  to  see  that  his  rule  was  not  only  not  limited 
to  Israel  nor  to  the  nations  of  the  then  known  world,  nor 
even  to  this  terrestrial  life,  but  that  it  embraced  the  entire 
universe,  so  that  neither  death,  nor  life,  nor  angels,  nor 
principalities,  nor  things  present,  nor  things  to  come,  nor 
height,  nor  depth,  nor  any  other  creature  was  beyond  the 
reach  of  his  power  and  control.  This  entire  development 
of  the  idea  of  God  grew  naturally  and  logically  out  of  the 
monolatrous  worship  established  by  Moses.  In  this  wor- 
ship there  may  have  been  very  little  that  was  new  so  far  as 
religious  conceptions  are  concerned.  That  Yahweh,  and 
he  alone,  was  God  of  Israel  had  its  parallel  in  other  na- 
tions. And  it  is  even  a  question  how  far,  if  at  all,  there 
was  any  differentiating  quality  in  the  Mosaic  conception 
of  his  character.  But  that  he  evoked  a  new  and  sustained 
enthusiasm,  that  he  called  forth  a  depth  and  intensity  of 
loyalty  heretofore  unknown,  would  seem  clear  from  the 
subsequent  history  of  Israel.  And  here  it  is  that  the  most 
significant  feature  of  Moses'  work  is  to  be  found.  What 
he  contributed  to  the  religious  development  of  mankind 
was  not  so  much  new  ideas  as  a  new  passion. 

How  far  this  new  loyalty  to  Yahweh  was  from  the 
outset  exclusive  and  implied  the  rejection  of  all  other 
deities  is  a  question  on  which  scholars  are  divided.  Some, 
such  as  H.  P.  Smith,^*^  hold  that  Moses  permitted  the 
hereditary  clan  and  family  gods  to  be  worshiped  along 
with  Yahweh,  and  that  the  Israelites  after  their  settlement 
in  Canaan  did  nothing  inconsistent  with  his  teaching 
when  they  combined  the  worship  of  Yahweh  with  that  of 
the  local  Baals  and  Ashtaroth.  For  centuries  after  the 
time  of  Moses  there  was,  we  are  told,  no  feeling  that 
Yahweh  was  an  intolerant  Deity.     It  was  the  religious 

'"  The  Religion  of  Israel,  pp.  66-75,  82-86. 

81 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

passion  of  Elijah  that  first  gave  rise  to  this  idea.  "We 
may,"  says  H.  P.  Smith,  "attribute  to  him  the  first  formu- 
lation of  the  statement,  so  frequent  in  later  times,  that 
Yahweh  is  a  jealous  God." 

But  this  view  fails  to  do  justice  to  the  work  of  Moses. 
It  fails  to  take  account  of  the  strength  and  depth  of  en- 
thusiasm created  by  that  initial  act  of  divine  grace  which 
laid  the  foundations  of  Israelitic  nationality.  So  intense 
was  the  loyalty  to  Yahweh  then  generated  that  it  would 
seem  clear  that  there  must  have  been  more  or  less  of  ex- 
clusiveness  associated  with  it  from  the  beginning.^^  If 
there  was  not,  it  is  difficult  to  see  how  Elijah  could  have 
found  any  point  of  attachment  for  his  message.  When 
he  summoned  the  people  of  his  day  to  choose  between 
Yahweh  and  Baal,  he  was  making  no  new  and  unheard 
of  demand  upon  them.  They  were  well  aware  that  the 
syncretistic  movement  then  going  on  w^as  not  conso- 
nant with  the  character  of  Yahweh.  And  it  was  just  that 
fact  that  gave  power  and  leverage  to  the  prophet's  mes- 
sage. He  was  no  innovator,  but  a  reformer.  He  looked 
upon  himself  as  simply  reviving  and  carrying  on  the  work 
of  Moses.  The  God  whom  he  proclaimed  was  in  his  every 
attribute  the  ancient  God  of  Horeb.  The  idea  of  the  in- 
tolerance of  Yahweh  did  not  then  originate  with  him. 
That  idea  goes  back  to  the  very  beginning.  It  was,  to  be 
sure,  in  subsequent  times  often  overlooked  by  the  people, 
often  disregarded  by  them  in  practice,  but  it  still  remained 
as  a  real  factor  in  the  national  consciousness.  Indeed,  it 
was  just  this  factor  that  constituted  the  uniqueness  of 
Israel's  religion  during  the  preprophetic  period.     "The 

'"  See  Kiichler,  Der  Gcdankc  dcs  Eifcrs  Jahwcs  hn  Alt  en  Testa- 
ment, in  Zeitschrift  fiir  die  alttesta)iieiitliclie  Wissenschaft,  1908, 
pp.  42-52. 

82 


THE  UNITY  OF  GOD 

peculiar  thing,"  as  Davidson  says,  "about  Israel  is  not 
that  it  had  one  God,  but  that  it  had  an  evil  conscience 
when  it  worshiped  other  gods."  ^^  And  this  evil  con- 
science was  a  corollary  of  that  passionate  devotion  to 
Yahweh  which  originated  with  Moses. 

The  Mosaic  monolatry,  we  consequently  hold,  included 
the  thought  of  the  divine  jealousy.  The  latter  idea  did 
not  originate  with  Elijah,  but  it  was  nevertheless  he  who 
made  the  first  distinct  advance  beyond  the  Mosaic  mono- 
latry. Moses  had  insisted  that  Yahweh,  and  he  alone,  was 
to  be  worshiped  in  Israel,  but  he  had  said  nothing  about 
the  existence  of  other  gods.  He  apparently  assumed  that 
the  gods  of  the  neighboring  nations  had  a  real  existence 
similar  to  that  of  Yahweh.  And  this  continued  to  be  the 
popular  belief  in  Israel  down  to  the  time  of  Elijah.  In  his 
day  there  arose  for  the  first  time  a  conflict  between  Yah- 
weh and  a  neighboring  deity.  Previously  the  local  Baals 
and  various  household  gods  had  been  worshiped  in  Israel, 
but  they  had  been  so  completely  subordinated  to  Yahweh 
that  proper  divinity  could  hardly  be  attributed  to  them. 
The  people  seem  scarcely  to  have  been  aware  that  in 
worshiping  them  they  were  not  worshiping  the  national 
deity.  But  when  Jezebel  introduced  into  Israel  the  wor- 
ship of  the  Tyrian  Baal  a  quite  different  situation  was 
created.  Here  was  a  god  of  a  neighboring  and  power- 
ful people.  There  could  be  no  question  about  his  inde- 
pendence of  Yahweh,  or  his  claims  to  true  divinity. 
What  attitude,  then,  was  to  be  taken  toward  him?  Was 
his  worship  to  be  tolerated  in  Israel?  If  so,  it  would 
mean  the  end  of  that  supreme  and  undivided  allegiance 
which  Yahweh  had  demanded  from  the  outset.    It  would 

^"  The  Theology  of  the  Old  Testament,  p.  91. 

83 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

mean  the  recognition  of  two  independent  spiritual  forces 
in  Israel,  and  this  in  turn  would  mean  the  disruption  of 
the  national  unity.  Such  a  peril  could  not  but  cause  the 
gravest  concern.  It  brought  the  question  of  Yahweh's 
relation  to  foreign  deities  to  a  head.  An  immediate  and 
definitive  settlement  of  the  problem  seemed  necessary. 
Compromise  between  Yahweh  and  Baal  was  not  to  be 
thought  of;  it  was  repugnant  to  all  the  best  traditions  of 
the  nation.  So  Elijah  demanded  that  the  people  make  a 
final  and  unequivocal  choice  between  the  two.  "If  Je- 
hovah be  God,  follow  him;  but  if  Baal,  then  follow 
him."  33 

The  question  thus  raised  was  settled,  as  was  inevit- 
able, in  favor  of  Yahweh.  But  what  did  this  decision 
imply  with  reference  to  Baal?  What  was  Elijah's  con- 
ception of  him?  To  this  question  there  are  three  differ- 
ent answers.  Some  contend  that  Elijah  had  no  intention 
of  denying  the  existence  of  Baal  or  his  proper  divinity 
in  his  own  sphere.  All  that  the  prophet  objected  to  was 
his  encroachment  upon  territory  that  belonged  to  Yah- 
weh. "It  is  evident,"  says  H.  P.  Smith,^^  "that  Elijah 
had  no  prejudice  against  other  gods  on  their  own  terri- 
tory. He  went  to  Sidon,  where  the  very  Baal  whom  he 
opposed  in  Israel  had  his  home,  and  remained  quiet  under 
his  protection.  His  theory  was  evidently  that  each  na- 
tion had  its  own  god  and  that  for  Israel  this  God  is  Yah- 
weh." Others  see  in  Elijah's  attitude  to  Baal  a  complete 
rejection  of  his  existence.  "The  ridicule,"  says  Kautzsch, 
"which  he  pours^^  upon  the  vain  efforts  of  the  prophets 
of  Baal  goes  essentially  beyond  the  sphere  of  henotheism, 

^  I  Kings  i8.  21. 

"  The  Religion  of  Israel,  p.  86. 

"  I  Kings  i8.  27. 

84 


THE  UNITY  OF  GOD 

and  is  equivalent  to  a  complete  denial,  not  only  of  the 
power  but  of  the  very  existence  of  Baal."  ^^  Still  others 
hold — and  probably  correctly — that  Elijah  did  not  go  so 
far  as  to  deny  altogether  the  existence  of  Baal.  The 
very  fact  that  he  was  worshiped  by  a  neighboring  people 
would,  according  to  contemporary  modes  of  thought, 
imply  that  he  was  not  a  mere  product  of  the  imagination. 
Some  sort  of  existence  was  probably  allowed  him.  But 
whatever  this  was,  it  did  not  in  Elijah's  view  constitute 
him  in  the  true  sense  of  the  word  a  deity.  He  was  not 
god  in  the  same  sense  as  Yahweh.  The  two  did  not  be- 
long to  the  same  class.  Yahweh  alone  was  God.  This 
truth  was  not  applied  by  Elijah  to  heathen  deities  gen- 
erally. He  had  no  occasion  to  do  so.  But  when  the 
occasion  once  arose  it  was  inevitable  that  the  application 
would  be  made.  What  Elijah  did  was  to  claim  for  Yah- 
weh a  unique  divinity,  such  a  divinity  as  could  not  be 
attributed  to  Baal  or  any  other  rival  deity. 

The  next  stage  in  the  development  of  the  belief  in  the 
sole  deity  of  Yahweh  is  represented  by  the  eighth-century 
prophets.  These  men  manifestly  took  the  same  attitude 
toward  the  heathen  gods  in  general  that  Elijah  did  to 
Baal.  They  were  not  confronted  with  the  necessity  of 
insisting  that  the  people  choose  between  the  worship 
of  Yahweh  and  that  of  foreign  deities.  That  question 
had  been  disposed  of  once  for  all  by  the  work  of  Elijah, 
EHsha,  and  Jehu.  But  the  appearance  of  Assyria  in  the 
west  made  it  imperative  that  they  point  out  the  relation 
of  Yahweh  to  this  world-power  and  to  other  nations  gen- 

"  Hastings'  Dictionary  of  the  Bible,  vol.  v,  p.  654.  The  same  view 
is  also  taken  by  H.  G.  Mitchell.  See  his  Ethics  of  the  Old  Testament, 
p.  88. 

8S 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

erally.  In  doing  so  they  did  not  look  upon  themselves  as 
announcing  anything  new.  What  they  said  concerning 
Yahweh  in  this  connection  they  assumed  was  already 
known  to  the  people,  or  at  least  ought  to  have  been.  That 
he  exercised  authority  over  other  nations  as  well  as  over 
Israel,  was  no  new  idea  suggested  by  the  approach  of 
Assyria.  A  certain  supernational  character  had  attached 
to  him  from  the  beginning.  This  was  implied  in  the 
thought  that  he  was  more  powerful  than  the  neighboring 
deities.  It  was  also  implied  in  the  belief  that  Yahweh  had 
chosen  Israel,  that  his  relation  to  Israel  was  not  a  purely 
natural  one,  but  one  founded  on  a  free  divine  act.  He 
might  have  chosen  some  other  people,  had  he  desired  to 
do  so.  There  was,  therefore,  nothing  startlingly  new  in 
Amos'  assumption  that  Yahweh  had  led  the  Philistines 
from  Caphtor  and  the  Syrians  from  Kir,^^  nor  was  there 
anything  unheard  of  in  Isaiah's  representation  of  Assyria 
as  the  rod  of  Yahweh's  anger  and  the  staff  of  his  indig- 
nation.^^ What  these  prophets  did  was  simply  to  apply 
to  new  conditions,  and  to  state  more  explicitly,  what  was 
already  implied  in  the  traditional  conception  of  Yahweh. 
"The  great  events  of  Israel's  history,"  as  Davidson  says, 
"did  not  suggest  to  the  prophets  their  conceptions  of 
Yahweh.  On  the  contrary,  their  conceptions  of  Yahweh 
already  held  solved  to  them  the  enigma  of  the  events  that 
happened."  ^^ 

In  the  prophetic  conception  of  the  universal  rule  of 
Yahweh  it  was  manifestly  implied  that  the  heathen  deities 
were  not  in  the  proper  sense  of  the  term  deities  at  all. 
There  is  no  explicit  statement  to  this  effect  until  we  come 


9-  7. 
'10.  5. 

'  The  Theology  of  the  Old  Testament,  p.  I02. 

86 


THE  UNITY  OF  GOD 

to  Jeremiah  and  Deuteronomy.  In  Jeremiah^^  the 
heathen  deities  are  spoken  of  as  "no  gods,"  and  in  Deut. 
4.  39  we  read,  "Know  therefore  this  day,  and  lay  it  to  thy 
heart,  that  Jehovah  he  is  God  in  heaven  above  and  upon 
the  earth  beneath;  there  is  none  else."  But  the  idea  is 
clearly  implicit  in  the  eighth-century  prophets.  Accord- 
ing to  Isaiah,  the  whole  earth  was  full  of  the  glory  of 
Yahweh,*^  and  the  entire  spirit-world  also  belonged  to 
him.  "The  Egyptians,"  he  says,  "are  men,  and  not  God; 
and  their  horses  flesh,  and  not  spirit."  ^^  God  and  spirit 
are  here  synonymous  terms,  and  both  are  by  the  context 
identified  with  Yahweh.  He  is  God  and  spirit  in  an  alto- 
gether unique  sense.  Isaiah  nowhere  takes  any  account  of 
the  gods  of  the  Assyrians  and  Egyptians.^^  Both  Hosea 
and  he  seem  to  have  identified  the  heathen  gods  with  their 
images.  The  images  were  lifeless,  the  work  of  men's 
hands ;  they  were  elilim,  nonentities  or  worthless  things. ^^ 
And  so,  it  may  be  presumed,  the  deities  they  represented 
were  likewise  regarded  as  lifeless  and  worthless.  Some 
sort  of  existence  apart  from  their  images  may  have  been 
allowed  them,  but,  if  so,  it  was  an  existence  altogether 
devoid  of  religious  significance.  The  eighth-century 
prophets  were  therefore  practically  monotheists,  and  this 
was,  if  anything,  still  more  true  of  Jeremiah  and  the  Deu- 
teronomists.     "Jehovah  our  God  is  one  Jehovah"  *^  ex- 

*"  2.  11;  16.  20. 

"  6.  3. 

«3i.  3. 

"  Chapter  19,  in  which  reference  is  made  to  the  idols  of  Egypt,  is 
commonly  assigned  to  later  hands.  If  from  Isaiah,  it  would  con- 
firm the  view  that  he  identified  the  heathen  gods  with  their  idols, 
for  the  same  term  {elilim)  is  here  applied  to  them  as  to  the  images 
of  Yahweh  in  2.  8. 

"  Hos.  8.  6 ;  Isa.  2.  8. 

*'  Deut.  6.  4. 

87 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

eluded,    as   we   have   seen,    the   thought    of   any   other 
god.'*^ 

A  still  further  development,  however,  of  the  mono- 
theistic idea  is  found  in  Deutero-Isaiah.  Here  it  is  not 
only  assumed  or  incidentally  stated  that  Yahweh  alone 
is  God,  but  the  thought  is  enlarged  upon,  asserted  again 
and  again,  and  enforced  by  arguments.  One  argument  is 
drawn  from  prophecy.  Yahweh  is  the  only  one  who  has 
proven  himself  able  to  predict  the  future.  No  other  god 
has  this  power.  The  other  deities,  therefore,  are  not 
gods.  They  are  "of  nothing"  and  their  work  is  "of 
nought."  ^^  In  thus  stressing  prediction  as  a  distinctive 
characteristic  of  divinity,  Deutero-Isaiah  was  not  think- 
ing primarily  of  the  miraculous  element  involved  in  it. 
Prediction,  as  he  conceived  it,  was  not  merely  a  marvel 
pointing  to  a  divine  cause.  It  was  a  symbol  and  expression 
of  the  intelligence  and  moral  purpose  operative  in  the 
world.  That  Yahweh,  and  he  alone,  had  the  power  of 
prediction  was  then  evidence  that  he  alone  was  the  con- 
trolling force  in  human  history,  that  he  alone  was  its 
directing  will.  Another  argument  urged  by  Deutero- 
Isaiah  in  support  of  the  sole  godhead  of  Yahweh  was 
based  on  his  work  as  Creator.  Over  and  over  again  the 
prophet  recurs  to  this  theme.  "Who,"  he  asks,  "hath 
measured  the  waters  in  the  hollow  of  his  hand,  and  meted 
out  heaven  with  the  span,  and  comprehended  the  dust  of 
the  earth  in  a  measure,  and  weighed  the  mountains  in 
scales,  and  the  hills  in  a  balance?"'*^     And  the  implied 


"For  this  use  of  "one"  see  Zech.  14.  9;  Song  of  Solomon  6.  9; 
and  Job  33.  23. 
"  Isa.  41.  21-29. 
**  Isa.  40.  12. 

88 


THE  UNITY  OF  GOD 

answer  is  "Yahweh  alone."  He  is  the  one  wiio  created 
the  heavens  and  laid  the  foundations  of  the  eardi.^^  The 
unity  of  creation  carries  with  it  the  unity  and  sole  deity 
of  the  Creator.  Yet  another  line  of  argumentation  fol- 
lowed by  Deutero-Isaiah  consists  in  pointing  out  the 
absurdity  of  all  idolatry.  He  identifies  the  heathen  deity 
with  its  image,  and  then  pours  out  all  manner  of  contempt 
and  ridicule  upon  the  worship  of  these  man-made  images 
of  wood  and  metal. ^"^  Deities  thus  worshiped  were  to 
his  mind  no  deities  at  all. 

It  is  sometimes  said  that  the  enthusiasm  with  which 
Deutero-Isaiah  exploits  the  thought  of  Yahweh's  sole 
deity  points  to  its  being  a  novel  idea.  But  this,  as  we 
have  seen,  was  not  the  case.  It  was  not  the  novelty  of 
the  idea  but  the  novelty  of  the  situation  that  led  to  Deu- 
tero-Isaiah's  stress  on  the  sole  godhead  of  Yahweh.  Dur- 
ing the  exile  the  Israelites  were  brought  face  to  face 
with  the  heathen  world  in  a  way  that  they  had  not  been 
before.  On  every  hand  they  were  surrounded  by  heathen 
deities.  Heathen  worship  was  everywhere  in  evidence 
about  them.  They  stood  face  to  face  with  an  imposing 
heathen  civilization.  If,  then,  in  the  presence  of  this  se- 
ductive environment  they  were  still  to  maintain  their  faith 
in  Yahweh,  they  needed  to  have  the  conviction  renewed 
that  he  alone  was  God.  So  time  and  again  the  great 
prophet  of  the  exile  recurs  to  this  thought.  "I  am  Je- 
hovah, and  there  is  none  else;  besides  me  there  is  no 
God.  .  .  .  Before  me  there  was  no  god  formed,  neither 
shall  there  be  after  me.  I,  even  I,  am  Jehovah;  and 
besides  me  there  is  no  saviour.  .  .  .  There  is  no  God 
else  besides  me,  a  just  God  and  Saviour;  there  is  none 

*°Isa.  42.  5;  44.  24;  45.  12,  18;  48.  13. 

^"40.  18-20;  41.  6f. ;  44.  9-20;  45.  20;  46.  1-2,  5-7. 

89 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

besides  me."  ^^  Here  the  name  "Jehovah,"  or  "Yahweh," 
ceases  to  have  any  special  meaning  and  becomes  the  high- 
est name  of  God. 

In  the  postexiHc  period  the  unity  of  God  became  a 
firmly  established  doctrine,  not  only  from  the  religious 
standpoint,  but  from  the  theological  and  speculative  as 
well.  The  tendency  at  the  same  time  arose  to  think  of 
God  as  more  and  more  transcendent  in  nature.  Such 
names  as  "God  of  Heaven"  and  "Most  High  God"  be- 
gan to  be  regularly  applied  to  him.^^  It  also  became 
customary  to  use  the  general  name  "God"  instead  of 
"Yahweh."  But  in  spite  of  this  increasingly  pronounced 
monotheism  the  older  particularistic  methods  of  expres- 
sion were  not  altogether  discarded.^^  Other  gods  were 
still  referred  to  as  though  they  actually  existed. ^^  And 
some  sort  of  existence  apart  from  their  idols  seems  at 
times  to  have  been  ascribed  to  them.  They  were  in  some 
instances  apparently  thought  of  as  demons, ^^  and  in  other 
cases  appear  to  have  been  represented  as  divine  beings  of 
a  subordinate  rank  whom  Yahweh  had  appointed  to  be 
worshiped  by  heathen  peoples.  In  Deut.  32.  8-9,  depart- 
ing from  the  text  of  the  American  Revised  Version  and 
substituting  what  was  probably  the  original  text,  we  read : 
"When  the  Most  High  gave  to  the  nations  their  inherit- 
ance, when  he  separated  the  children  of  men,  he  set  the 
bounds  of  the  peoples  according  to  the  number  of  the  sons 
of  God;  but  Yahweh's  portion  is  his  people ;  Jacob  is  the 

"Isa.  45.  5;  43.  lo-ii ;  45.  21. 

"Ezra  6.  10;  7.  12;  Neh.  2.  4,  20;  Dan.  2.  i8f. ;  3.  26;  Psa. 
78.  56;  136.  26. 

''Ruth  I.  i5f.;  2.  12. 
»*Psa.  86.  8;  135- 5 ;  96.  4- 

*^Deut.  22-  17;  Psa.  106.  27',  compare  i  Cor.  10.  2of. ;  Rev.  9.  20, 

90 


THE  UNITY  OF  GOD 

lot  of  his  inheritance."  And  in  Deut.  4.  19  we  read  of  the 
worship  of  the  sun  and  the  moon  and  the  stars,  "which 
Jehovah  thy  God  hath  allotted  unto  all  the  peoples  under 
the  whole  heaven."  Such  conceptions  as  these  arose  from 
the  desire  to  reconcile  the  supremacy  of  Yahweh  with  the 
fact  of  the  widespread  worship  of  other  gods.  They  do 
not  therefore  in  any  way  compromise  the  sole  deity  of 
Yahweh.  Other  gods,  whatever  form  of  existence  may 
have  been  attributed  to  them,  were  regarded  as  wholly 
subject  to  his  rule. 

The  thoroughgoing  monotheism,  in  which  the  Old 
Testament  thus  culminated,  had  its  roots,  as  we  have  seen, 
in  the  actual  experience  and  practical  needs  of  the  people. 
Not  speculation  but  the  logic  of  events  was  the  moving 
force  in  its  development.  Its  history  began  with  a  great 
act  of  dedication  to  the  newly  found  national  Deity. 
Yahweh  had  marvelously  delivered  the  Israelites  from 
their  Egyptian  bondage,  and  they  in  return  had  vowed 
to  him  their  undying  allegiance.  In  him  they  concen- 
trated all  their  faith  and  hope.  The  new  relationship  thus 
established  was  an  exclusive  one.  It  was  a  love  relation, 
and  so  would  brook  no  rival.  Other  gods  no  doubt 
existed,  but  none  of  them  might  be  put  on  a  plane  of 
equality  with  Yahweh  without  arousing  his  jealousy.  He 
demanded  the  undivided  loyalty  of  his  people,  and  they 
in  return,  at  least  in  their  better  moments,  felt  that  he 
was  able  to  meet  all  their  needs.  It  was  then  inevitable, 
when  their  expanding  life  and  thought  brought  them  into 
ever  closer  contact  with  other  nations,  that  they  would 
eventually  deny  proper  divinity  and  true  existence  to  all 
other  deities.  The  Tyrian  Baal  was  first  relegated  to  this 
position,  and  then  shortly  afterward  other  deities  gen- 
erally, until  finally  Yahweh  was  recognized  as  King  of 

91 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

kings  and  Lord  of  lords.  The  imperious  heart  of  the 
Hebrew  could  tolerate  no  fundamental  dualism  or  plural- 
ism in  its  view  of  the  universe.  Its  demand  for  an  ulti- 
mate unity  was  as  insistent  as  was  the  Greek  intellect. 
But  while  the  latter  gave  us  a  unity  that  aimed  simply  to 
satisfy  the  mind's  demand  for  an  ultimate  explanation  of 
the  world,  the  former  gave  us  a  unity  that  met  the  de- 
mands of  life  as  a  whole,  a  unity  to  which  heart,  con- 
science, and  intellect  might  adoringly  turn  and  say,  "Thy 
kingdom  come  and  thy  will  be  done."  It  is,  then,  no  sur- 
prise that  the  monotheistic  faith  of  the  Hebrews  rather 
than  the  monistic  philosophy  of  the  Greeks  finally  con- 
quered the  civilized  world. 


9a 


CHAPTER  IV 
THE  SPIRITUALITY  OF  GOD 

The  word  "spirituality"  as  applied  to  God  has  at  least 
three  distinct  meanings.  It  means  that  God  is  a  spirit  as  I 
distinguished  from  material  or  physical  existence.  It 
means  that  he  is  free  from  the  weakness  of  flesh,  and  is  a 
supramundane  power,  superior  to  the  forces  of  nature.  It 
means  also  that  there  is  an  inner  side  to  his  personality,  a 
rational  and  ethical  side,  and  that  it  is  here  that  his  essen- 
tial nature  is  to  be  found.  He  is  not  primarily  substance 
or  force,  but  a  rational  and  ethical  Being,  who  seeks  to 
control  men  not  by  the  sheer  exercise  of  power  but  by 
appeal  to  their  reason  and  intelligence,  and  who  conse- 
quently, when  worshiped,  must  be  worshiped  in  spirit  and 
in  truth. 

These  three  senses,  in  which  the  divine  spirituality  is 
affirmed,  stand  in  a  certain  relation  to  each  other.  The 
second  and  third  do  not  necessarily  follow  from  the  first, 
but  they  are  naturally  suggested  by  it  and  by  the  corre- 
sponding conceptions  of  the  human  spirit.  Spirit  as  ap- 
plied to  man  in  the  Old  Testament  did  not  simply  mean 
the  ethereal  substance  of  which  the  soul  was  supposed  to 
be  composed.  It  also  expressed  both  the  idea  of  power 
and  that  of  character.  Spirit  was  the  vital  element  in 
man,  the  source  of  energy.  It  was  also  the  seat  of  the 
higher  mental  and  moral  life.  Naturally,  then,  these 
ideas  were  carried  over  into  the  conception  of  the  Divine 
Spirit,  for  our  thought  of  God  is  modeled  on  our  thought 

93 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

of  man.  We  first  form  some  idea  of  our  own  spirit  and 
then  apply  this  to  the  Divine  Spirit,  making  such  changes 
as  are  required  by  the  unique  conditions  and  unique  char- 
acter of  the  Divine  Life.  These  changes,  however,  do  not 
alter  the  essential  characteristics  of  spirit  as  realized  in 
human  life.  Spirituality,  both  divine  and  human,  is  fun- 
damentally the  same.  It  has  a  threefold  meaning,  and 
involves  a  threefold  antithesis,  an  antithesis  to  lumpish 
matter,  to  fleshly  weakness,  and  to  brute  force. 

The  form  under  which  spirit  was  originally  conceived 
was  apparently  that  of  an  ethereal  substance,  a  refined 
or  attenuated  matter.  The  Latin  word  spiritus,  from 
which  our  English  word  was  derived,  meant  primarily 
breath  or  wind.  And  this  was  also  the  meaning  of  the 
corresponding  Hebrew  word  ruach.  Spirit  did  not  then, 
to  begin  with,  stand  in  complete  antithesis  to  matter.  It 
was  not  an  "immaterial"  form  of  existence.  This  highly 
abstract  idea  appears  nowhere  in  either  the  Old  or  the 
New  Testament.  "The  conception  of  an  immaterial  soul 
and  the  corresponding  conception  of  an  immaterial  God 
have  their  origin  in  Plato."  ^  And  not  until  postbiblical 
times  did  they  become  the  property  of  Hebrew  and  Chris- 
tian thought.  Spirit,  as  we  find  it  in  the  Scriptures,  was 
a  rarefied  form  of  matter.  But  this  fact,  while  interest- 
esting  from  the  philosophical  point  of  view,  did  not  seri- 
ously affect  the  actual  distinction  made  between  the  mate- 
rial and  the  spiritual.  Matter  in  its  sublimated  or  spirit- 
ual form  was  so  different  from  matter  in  its  ordinary 
manifestations  that  there  was  felt  to  be  a  virtual  antithesis 
between  them. 

In  this  connection  the  question  naturally  arises  as  to 
whether  the  Hebrews  ever  thought  of  God  as  having  a 

'  G.  F.  Moore,  History  of  Religions,  vol.  i,  pp.  501  f. 

94 


THE  SPIRITUALITY  OF  GOD 

definite  form.  Spirit,  as  they  conceived  it,  was  not  nec- 
essarily formless.  It  occupied  space,  and  though  usually 
invisible  as  the  air,  might  have  been  regarded  as  having 
shape  or  form.  The  analogy  of  wind  and  breath,  how- 
ever, was  unfavorable  to  this  view.  A  certain  formless- 
ness belongs  to  these  natural  phenomena.  And  so  it 
probably  was  with  spirit  as  generally  conceived.  But 
nowhere  in  the  Old  Testament  is  it  said  that  God  was 
pure  spirit,  or  even  that  he  was  a  spirit.  The  Spirit  of 
God  is  frequently  spoken  of,  but  the  same  expression 
was  used  of  men.  It  is  then  possible  that  the  human 
analogy  was  applied  to  God,  and  that  he  was  thought  of 
as  having  a  spirit  rather  than  being  a  spirit.  In  that  case 
a  quasi-physical  form  similar  to  that  of  the  human  body 
may  have  been  attributed  to  him.  And  that  this  was  the 
view  of  the  early  Hebrews  is  the  contention  of  not  a 
few  scholars.  When  it  is  said  that  man  was  made  in  the 
image  of  God,^  what  the  author  had  in  mind,  we  are  told, 
was  the  physical  resemblance  between  man  and  God.  The 
human  body  was  patterned  after  the  divine  body.  That 
God  was  thought  of  as  having  a  human  form  is  evident, 
it  is  claimed,  from  the  fact  that  Old  Testament  writers 
speak  of  his  hand,  his  arm,  his  eyes,  his  ears,  his  mouth, 
his  lips;  in  short,  the  organs  of  the  human  body  in  gen- 
eral are  ascribed  to  him.  He  is  represented  as  walking 
in  the  garden  in  the  cool  of  the  day.  Moses  is  permitted 
to  see  his  back,  though  not  his  face.^  Such  expressions 
as  these,  it  is  contended,  would  not  have  been  used  if  it 
had  not  been  believed  that  the  Deity  had  a  physical  form 
of  some  kind. 


^  Gen.  I.  27 ;  9.  6,  P. 

^Exod.  2Z-  20-23,  J;  compare  Num.  12.  8;  Psa.  17.  i 

95 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

But  in  reply  to  these  considerations  it  may  be  urged 
that  the  anthropomorphisms  of  the  Old  Testament  cannot 
in  any  case  be  taken  in  strict  literalness.  If  God  was 
looked  upon  as  having  a  body,  it  must  have  been  a  very 
different  kind  of  body  from  our  own.  "Doubtless,"  says 
H.  P.  Smith,  "the  body  of  Yahweh  was  conceived  of  as 
ethereal,  not  material  like  ours.  It  is  a  body  of  lumin- 
ous matter,  a  'glory,'  so  that  the  offerings  must  be  sub- 
limated by  fire  in  order  that  he  may  receive  the  agreeable 
odor."  ^  But  such  a  body  would  from  the  biblical  point 
of  view  be  practically  indistinguishable  from  spirit.  It 
would  have  to  be  described  as  a  spiritual  body.  And  if  so, 
the  human  analogy  of  body  and  soul  manifestly  fails  as 
applied  to  the  Deity,  for  it  now  turns  out  that  the  divine 
body  and  soul  are  identical  in  substance.  Both  are  spirit- 
ual, that  is,  ethereal.  And  so  God  in  the  totality  of  his 
nature  is,  after  all,  a  spiritual  being. 

It  has  already  been  pointed  out  that  God  is  nowhere 
in  the  Old  Testament  said  to  be  a  spirit.  But  this  fact 
has  no  special  significance.  The  impression  left  by  the 
Old  Testament  as  a  whole  is  that  the  divine  spirituality 
was  so  generally  recognized  that  it  did  not  need  to  be 
affirmed.  In  Isa.  31.  3  it  is,  for  instance,  said  that  "the 
Egyptians  are  men,  and  not  God;  and  their  horses  flesh, 
and  not  spirit."  God  and  spirit  are  here  distinctly  op- 
posed to  men  and  flesh.  Indeed,  the  words  "God"  and 
"spirit"  are  treated  as  virtually  synonymous.  And  that 
this  was  the  general  Old  Testament  conception  can  hardly 
be  questioned.  It  is  in  this  sense  that  the  expression 
"Spirit  of  God"  is  to  be  understood.  "This  calling  what 
is  really  God,"  says  A.  B.  Davidson,  "by  the  term  the 
Spirit  of  God  is  the  strongest  proof  that  the  idea  of  the 

*  The  Religioti  of  Israel,  p.  99.    See  Gen.  8.  20-22,  J. 

96 


THE  SPIRITUALITY  OF  GOD 

spirituality  of  God  underlay  the  idea  of  God."  ^  No 
doubt  spirit  was  often  conceived  very  crudely.  The  He- 
brews were  not  given  to  reflection  on  such  matters.  They 
accepted  the  current  ideas  concerning  spirit  and  spiritual 
beings  without  any  effort  to  reduce  them  to  philosophical 
consistency.  But  the  physical  images  and  materialistic 
expressions  used  of  the  Deity  were  wholly  subordinate  to 
the  thought  of  his  true  spirituality.  And  the  tendency  in 
Old  Testament  teaching  was  more  and  more  to  dc-matc- 
riali^e  the  conception  of  spirit.  As  the  thought  of  God 
and  his  greatness  grew,  it  was  inevitable  that  a  more 
refined  view  of  spirit  should  come  to  prevail.  At  first  a 
quasi-human  form  may  have  been  attributed  to  Yahweh, 
but  later  this  was  felt  to  be  inconsistent  with  his  exalted 
character.  When  he  revealed  himself  on  Mount  Sinai 
the  people  heard  a  voice  but  saw  no  form.^  This  was  re- 
garded as  evidence  that  no  material  image  could  properly 
represent  him.  He  was  essentially  formless,  "without 
body  or  parts."  Pure  immateriality  was  not,  as  we  have 
seen,  ascribed  to  him.  But  he  was  nevertheless  in  at  least 
the  later  stages  of  Hebrew  thought  regarded  as  com- 
pletely superior  to  the  limits  of  time  and  space.''^ 

Thus  far  we  have  considered  the  Spirit  of  God  from 
what  might  be  termed  the  metaphysical  point  of  view,  as 
a  substance.  But  it  was  not  this  aspect  of  the  divine 
spirituality  that  especially  interested  the  Hebrews.  What 
appealed  to  them  in  connection  with  spirit  was  the  idea  of 
power.  Originally,  spirit  meant  breath.  But  where  there 
is  breath,  there  is  life  and  strength.     Consequently,  at  a 

°  The  Theology  of  the  Old  Testament,  p.  125. 

*Deut.  4.  12,  15. 

'  Psa.  139.  7ff. ;  90.  4. 

97 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

very  early  date  the  idea  of  vitality  and  power  came  to 
be  connected  with  that  of  spirit.  In  man  spirit  was  op- 
posed to  flesh.  And  this  antithesis  was  still  further  ac- 
centuated in  the  case  of  the  Divine  Spirit.  The  Spirit  of 
God  stood  opposed  to  all  material  and  fleshly  existence. 
The  latter  was  weak  and  dependent,  destined  to  pass 
away;  the  former  was  the  creative  energy  of  the  world, 
transcendental,  independent,  self-existent.  It  is  this  idea 
that  is  emphasized  in  the  above  verse  quoted  from  Isaiah. 
The  Egyptians  were  men  and  their  horses  flesh.  They 
were  not,  therefore,  to  be  relied  upon.  For  opposed  to 
them  stood  God  and  spirit,  the  invisible  principle  that 
guides  the  course  of  human  history. 

In  this  dynamic  conception  of  the  divine  spirituality 
it  is  implied  that  God  stood  apart  from  the  material 
world.  He  was  not  contained  in  it,  but  was  above  it. 
He  might  use  the  forces  of  nature,  but  he  was  identified 
with  none  of  them.  He  might  make  the  nations  of  the 
world  his  instruments  f  indeed,  they  had  no  power  inde- 
pendently of  him;^  but  he  was  not  limited  to  such  means 
in  order  to  accomplish  his  purpose.  He  could  intervene 
in  human  affairs  in  a  miraculous  way.  And  so  there  w^as 
a  tendency  to  contrast  the  Divine  Spirit  with  human 
might,  "Not  by  might,"  we  read,  "nor  by  power,  but 
by  my  spirit,  saith  Jehovah."  ^^  And  Judah,  we  are  told, 
is  to  be  saved  not  "by  bow,  nor  by  sword,  nor  by  battle,  by 
horses,  nor  by  horsemen,"  but  by  Yahweh  their  God.^^ 
A  distinctly  idealistic  element  was  thus  introduced  into 
Israelitic  thought.  Other  forces,  it  was  seen,  have  to  be 
reckoned  with  besides  material  strength.  There  is  an 
unseen  spiritual  power  that  may  at  any  time  upset  the  cal- 


*Isa.  10.  5. 

"Zech.  4.  6. 

•Isa.  10.  15. 

"  Hos.  I.  7. 

98 

THE  SPIRITUALITY  OF  GOD 

culations  of  men.  Military  strength  and  material  pros- 
perity have  in  them  no  certain  guarantees  for  the  future. 
Providence  is  by  no  means  always  on  the  side  of  the  heav- 
iest artillery.  Over  and  above  all  these  material  forces  is 
an  invisible  Spirit  directing  the  course  of  affairs.  Men 
need  not,  therefore,  be  discouraged  by  the  unideal  con- 
ditions of  life.  These  conditions  will  not  last  forever. 
For  at  the  helm  of  the  universe  there  is  a  personal  will, 
stronger  than  the  arm  of  flesh,  more  powerful  than  insen- 
tient matter,  which  in  due  time  will  bring  to  pass  its  own 
purposes. 

This  brings  us  to  the  third  sense  in  which  the  spiritual- 
ity of  God  is  taught  in  the  Old  Testament,  the  subjective 
or  ethical  sense.  The  Divine  Spirit  is  substance  and 
power,  especially  the  latter.  But  spirit  as  applied  to  God 
is  also  the  Spirit  of  holiness,  an  ethical  Spirit.  It  happens 
that  the  expression  "holy  Spirit"  occurs  but  three  times  in 
the  Old  Testament  ;^^  and  only  twice  is  the  Divine  Spirit 
spoken  of  as  "good."  ^^  But  the  idea  thus  expressed  was, 
of  course,  involved  in  the  moral  character  of  Yahweh. 
The  Spirit  of  God  was  as  ethical  as  God  himself.  As  the 
thought  of  God  was  gradually  moralized,  so  was  that  of 
his  Spirit. 

In  the  time  of  the  Judges  the  Spirit  of  God  was  asso- 
ciated with  extraordinary  physical  strength  and  unusual 
gifts  of  military  leadership.  The  remarkable  achieve- 
ments of  Samson,  Gideon,  Jephthah,  and  Saul  were  all 
ascribed  to  the  Divine  Spirit.^*     And  it  is  probable  that 


"Psa.  51.  11;  Isa.  63.  10,  II. 

"Neh.  9.  20;  Psa.  143.  10. 

"  Judg.  14.  6;  6.  34;  IX.  29;  I  Sam.  11.  6. 

99 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

the  ascription  of  prophecy  to  the  Spirit  of  God  was  at 
first  due  to  the  excited  demeianor  of  the  prophets  rather 
than  to  the  ethical  character  of  their  utterances.  We  read, 
for  instance,  in  i  Sam.  i8.  lo,  that  "an  evil  spirit  from 
God  came  mightily  upon  Saul,  and  he  prophesied  in  the 
midst  of  the  house."  "Prophesied"  here  evidently  refers 
to  the  extraordinary  deportment  of  the  king,  his  rav- 
ing. It  was  this  external  aspect  of  prophecy  that  seems 
to  have  first  attracted  the  attention  of  men.  It,  however, 
gradually  subsided,  and  in  its  place  there  came  into  the 
foreground  that  powerful  moral  conviction  which  the 
prophets  themselves  were  persuaded  was  born  of  the 
Spirit  of  God.  "I  am  full  of  power,"  says  Micah,  "by  the 
Spirit  of  Jehovah,  and  of  judgment,  and  of  might,  to  de- 
clare unto  Jacob  his  transgression,  and  to  Israel  his 
sin."  ^^  The  supreme  test  of  the  Spirit's  presence  is  now 
the  moral  test.  What  characterizes  the  Spirit-filled  Mes- 
siah is  "the  spirit  of  wisdom  and  understanding,  the  spir- 
it of  counsel  and  might,  the  spirit  of  knowledge  and  of  the 
fear  of  Jehovah."  ^®  "To  preach  good  tidings  unto  the 
meek ;  ...  to  bind  up  the  broken-hearted,  to  proclaim 
liberty  to  the  captives,  and  the  opening  of  the  prison  to 
them  that  are  bound"  ^''' — such  are  the  fruits  of  the  Spirit. 
All  the  highest  elements  in  human  life  are  due  to  the 
Spirit  of  God.^^  From  this  it  necessarily  follows  that  the 
Divine  Spirit  itself  is  essentially  intellectual  and  moral  in 
character.  It  is  a  "holy  spirit,"  a  "good  spirit,"  a  "spirit 
of  knowledge."  The  element  of  power  is  not  excluded 
from  it,  but  the  power  it  represents  is  no  longer  selfishly 
or  capriciously  exercised.  It  is  a  rational  and  moral 
power,  a  power  with  whom  the  individual  man  may  hold 

"Mic.  3.  8.  "Isa.  61.  I. 

'°  Isa.  II,  2.  ''  Exod.  31.  2-3,  P ;  Job  22.  8. 

100 


THE  SPIRITUALITY  OF  GOD 

communion,  a  power  so  rich  in  its  fellowship  with  men 
that  the  devout  heart  instinctively  exclaims, 

"Whom  have  I  in  heaven  but  thee? 

And  there  is  none  upon  earth  that  I  desire  besides  thee."  ^^ 

The  lofty  conceptions  which  were  thus  associated  with 
the  spirituality  of  Yahweh  are  significant  in  and  of  them- 
selves. But  what  especially  interests  us  in  connection 
with  them  is  their  bearing  on  the  religious  life  and  wor- 
ship of  the  Israelites.  And  here  there  are  three  lines  of 
influence  to  be  particularly  noted :  the  effect  on  sacrificial 
worship,  on  the  localization  of  Yahweh,  and  on  the  use  of 
images.  What  the  effect  in  each  of  these  instances  should 
have  been,  is  clear  enough  from  the  abstract  point  of  view. 
In  so  far  as  Yahweh  was  looked  upon  as  a  transcendent 
Being,  superior  to  the  limits  of  time  and  space,  in  so  far 
as  he  was  regarded  as  of  a  purely  ethereal  nature,  free 
from  material  needs,  in  so  far  as  he  was  thought  to  be 
in  his  inmost  essence  a  rational  and  moral  Being;  in  a 
word,  in  so  far  as  he  was  genuinely  spiritual,  it  is  mani- 
fest that  sacrifices  in  and  of  themselves  could  have  no 
value  for  him,  that  his  presence  could  not  be  confined  to 
any  particular  place  or  region,  and  that  no  material  image 
could  properly  represent  him  to  the  thought  and  imagina- 
tion of  men.  But  in  actual  life  the  situation  was  not  so 
simple.  Sacrifices,  sacred  places,  and  images  had  had 
their  place  in  religion  from  the  most  ancient  times.  They 
had  been  legislated  into  the  very  structure  of  worship. 
Through  the  force  of  habit  they  had  acquired  a  momen- 
tum which  caused  them  to  persist  long  after  the  orig- 
inal reason  for  their  institution  had  been  forgotten.    We 

"  Psa.  72.  25. 

lOI 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

must  not,  then,  expect  that  the  higher  ideas  of  God  cur- 
rent in  Israel  from  the  time  of  Moses  on  would  work 
themselves  out  at  once  into  practice.  There  would  neces- 
sarily be  long  periods  of  concession  and  compromise,  be- 
fore people  came  to  see  that  the  older  customs  and  the 
newer  ideas  were  essentially  irreconcilable,  and  that  the 
former  must  yield  to  the  latter.  Perfect  harmony  be- 
tween religious  practice  and  religious  thought  is  conse- 
quently not  to  be  looked  for.  In  a  developing  society 
practice  as  a  rule  lags  far  behind  thought.  And  so  it  was 
in  Israel.  The  essential  spirituality  of  Yahweh  may  have 
been  apprehended  early  in  the  history  of  Israel,  indeed, 
from  the  very  outset ;  and  yet  it  may  not  have  been  until 
centuries  later  that  its  logical  consequences  were  wrought 
out  in  life  and  practice. 

The  custom  of  offering  sacrifices  continued  throughout 
the  entire  Old  Testament  period.  In  one  sense  the  custom 
was  not  inconsistent  with  spiritual  religion.  Sacrifices 
might  be  regarded  as  mere  outward  tokens  of  gratitude 
and  devotion,  and  hence  might  be  in  complete  harmony 
with  a  thoroughly  rational  and  ethical  worship.  This 
was  apparently  the  attitude  taken  by  the  early  literary 
prophets.  These  men  did  not,  as  some  scholars  maintain, 
denounce  sacrifices  as  such.  What  they  condemned  was 
sacrifices  offered  as  a  substitute  for  righteousness.  And 
in  this  sense  they  also  condemned  prayer. ^'^  A  purely 
formal  prayer  was  as  worthless  in  their  sight  as  a  purely 
formal  sacrifice.^^  Neither  had  any  value  in  and  of  itself. 
Yet  both  might  be  helpful  as  outward  expressions  of  a 
true  inner  piety.  At  least  nothing  was  said  by  the  early 
prophets  that  is  necessarily  inconsistent  with  this  view. 

"  Isa.  I.  15. 
"  Isa.  29.  13. 

IQ2 


THE  SPIRITUALITY  OF  GOD 

But  this  was  not  the  attitude  taken  by  the  Hebrews  in 
general  toward  sacrifices.  They  looked  upon  these  out- 
ward rites  as  an  essential  element  in  the  worship  of  Yah- 
weh.  This  was  true  both  of  the  early  popular  religion 
and  the  later  legal  religion.  It  may  be  that  in  early  times 
the  Hebrews  shared  to  some  extent  the  primitive  belief 
that  the  Deity  himself  actually  partook  of  the  sacrificial 
offering,  deriving  a  kind  of  physical  satisfaction  from 
it.  We  read,  for  instance,  in  one  passage  that  "Jehovah 
smelled  the  sweet  savor"  of  Noah's  sacrifice,  and  so  said 
in  his  heart  that  he  would  not  again  curse  the  ground  for 
man's  sake.^^  But  while  this  conception  in  a  strictly  lit- 
eral sense  may  have  had  some  currency  in  Israel,  there 
is  no  evidence  that  it  was  ever  widely  held.  The  prevail- 
ing view  seems  to  have  been  that  sacrifices  had  been  di- 
vinely established  as  a  means  of  communion  with  the 
Deity,  and  hence  must  be  observed.  There  may  originally 
have  been  some  mysterious  reason  for  the  institution,  but 
primarily  it  rested  upon  the  divine  will.  This  was  at  least 
the  view  that  prevailed  during  the  later  legal  period.  It 
represents  a  distinct  advance  beyond  the  crudely  material- 
istic conception  of  an  earlier  day.  But  it  is  still  an  un- 
spiritual  view,  for  in  its  last  analysis  it  bases  sacrifice 
upon  an  arbitrary  act  of  the  divine  will.  No  adequate 
rational  or  ethical  reason  for  the  institution  is  given. 
And  an  institution  so  founded  by  its  very  nature  violates 
the  inner  principle  of  the  divine  spirituality,  for  this  prin- 
ciple permits  religion  to  require  of  men  only  such  a  service 
as  is  rational  and  ethical.  This  idea  the  prophets,  as  we 
have  seen,  clearly  grasped,  and  so  did  some  of  the  psalm- 
ists.^^   But  the  later  ecclesiastical  system  stood  in  the  way 

"  Gen.  8.  21,  J. 
''  Psa.  51.  16. 

103 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

of  its  complete  recognition.  The  result  was  that  the  prac- 
tice of  sacrifice  continued  as  an  unspiritual  force,  until 
it  was  finally  brought  to  an  end  by  the  work  of  Jesus  and 
Paul. 

The  tendency  to  localize  Yahweh  grew  up  partly  out  of 
inherited  customs  and  beliefs  and  partly  out  of  the  felt 
need  of  giving  concreteness  to  the  idea  of  his  presence. 
Sinai  or  Horeb  seems  to  have  been  originally  regarded  as 
in  a  special  sense  his  home.^'*  Later  the  land  of  Ca- 
naan,^^  and  especially  the  individual  sanctuaries  in  the 
land,^®  were  looked  upon  as  his  dwelling  place.  But  his 
residence  in  these  three  places  did  not  exclude  the  thought 
of  his  presence  elsewhere,  and  particularly  the  thought  of 
his  residence  in  heaven.  It  is  argued  by  Stade^"  that 
the  latter  idea  was  unknown  during  the  preprophetic  pe- 
riod; that,  in  fact,  it  did  not  originate  until  the  time  of 
Ezekiel.  But  in  this  he  is  certainly  mistaken.  We  read 
in  the  J  document  of  Yahweh's  coming  "down"  upon 
Mount  Sinai,  and  of  his  going  "down"  to  see  the  tower  of 
Babel,  and  "down"  to  ascertain  the  real  situation  at 
!l.odom  and  Gomorrah."^  It  is  here  manifestly  implied 
that  Yahweh's  customary  abode  was  in  heaven  above. 
And  this  is  also  the  implication  of  other  early  passages. ^^ 
"According  to  the  whole  Old  Testament,  God  dwells  in 
heaven."  ^^    From  there  he  visits  the  children  of  men  and 

"  Judg.  5.  4f. ;  I  Kings  19.  8. 

"  I  Sam.  26.  19;  2  Kings  17,  18,  23;  Hos.  8.  i ;  9.  3,  15;  Jer.  2.  7. 

'"Gen.  21.  14,  17;  28.  i6f.  JE;  Amos  i.  2. 

"  Biblische  Theologie  des  Alien  Testaments,  pp.  I03f. 

''*Exod.  19.  lib,  20a;  Gen.  11.  5,  7;  18.  21. 

''  Gen.  19.  24,  J ;  21.  17 ;  28.  12,  17,  E. 

^^  Piepenbring,  The  Theology  of  the  Old  Testament,  p.  26.  See 
Westphal,  Jahwes  Wohnstdtten  nach  den  Anschauungen  der  altcn 
Hebrdcr. 

104 


THE  SPIRITUALITY  OF  GOD 

manifests  himself  at  particular  places.^ ^  To  these  places 
he  was  not  bound  in  a  fetishistic  sense.  Yet  his  connec- 
tion with  them  and  with  the  land  of  Canaan  as  a  whole 
was  closer  than  seems  to  us  consistent  with  his  true  spir- 
ituality. This  connection,  however,  was  due  not  so  much 
to  a  defective  view  of  God  on  the  part  of  the  Hebrews  as 
it  was  to  their  limited  knowledge  of  the  world  and  the 
limited  range  of  their  sympathy.  Hence  as  their  knowl- 
edge and  sympathy  broadened  they  naturally  detached 
Yahweh  more  and  more  from  his  connection  with  the 
land  of  Canaan.  Especially  did  the  exile  and  the  disper- 
sion of  the  Jews  contribute  to  this  end.  But  the  move- 
ment in  this  direction  did  not  attain  its  completion  in  the 
Old  Testament.  There  lingered  to  the  last  traces  at  least 
of  an  unspiritual  connection  between  Yahweh  and  the 
sacred  places  of  the  past  (compare  John  4.  2of.). 

A  special  word  in  this  connection  needs  to  be  added 
concerning  the  ark  and  the  temple.  It  has  recently  been 
argued  with  a  good  deal  of  ingenuity  and  considerable 
plausibility  that  the  traditional  view,  that  there  was  but 
one  ark,  is  erroneous  ;^2  there  were  many  arks,  every 
important  sanctuary  having  one.  Where  we  now  read  in 
the  early  literature  of  the  "ephod  and  teraphim,"  the 
original  reading,  we  are  told,  was  "ark  and  teraphim." 
It  was  the  Deuteronomistic  editors  who  introduced  the 
change  into  the  text.  Their  purpose  in  so  doing  was  to 
remove  from  the  early  historical  documents  everything 
inconsistent  with  the  idea  that  there  was  but  one  ark,  and 
so  to  establish  in  the  early  history  of  Israel  a  point  of 
support  for  the  Deuteronomic  centralization  of  worship 


'-W.  R.  Arnold,  Ephod  and  Ark:  A  Study  in  the  Records  and 
Religion  of  the  Ancient  Hebrews. 
"  Exod.  20.  24. 

105 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

in  Jerusalem.  Should  this  theory  prove  correct,  it  would 
probably  detract  somewhat  from  the  importance  of  the 
ark  in  the  early  religion  of  Israel,  but  it  would  not  appre- 
ciably affect  its  bearing  on  the  spirituality  of  Yahweh, 
the  point  with  which  we  are  at  present  concerned.  This 
bearing  would  be  practically  the  same,  whether  the  ark 
was  one  or  many. 

Accepting  the  common  view  that  there  was  but  one  ark, 
and  that  it  was  the  work  of  Moses,  we  find  a  considerable 
diversity  of  opinion  as  to  its  original  character.  Accord- 
ing to  the  biblical  account, ^^  it  was  a  sacred  box  contain- 
ing the  tables  of  the  law.  Some  modern  scholars  regard 
this  as  impossible  because  of  what  they  believe  to  be  the 
late  date  of  the  Decalogue.  Hence  they  substitute  for  the 
tables  of  the  law  a  meteoric  stone  or  stones.^*  These 
stones  had  come  down  from  heaven.  They  were  con- 
sequently sacred,  and  were  believed  to  embody  in  some 
realistic  way  the  divine  presence.  Others  take  the  view 
that  the  ark  was  a  portable  throne  on  which  Yahweh  was 
seated.^^  But  whatever  its  exact  character,  there  can  be 
no  doubt  that  it  was  regarded  in  early  times  as  not  only  a 
symbol  of  the  divine  presence  but  as  an  objectification 
and  guarantee  of  it.^^  Far  more  so  than  any  other  sacred 
object  it  made  real  the  presence  of  Yahweh.  And  hence 
the  sanctuaries  where  it  was  kept,  those  at  Shiloh  and 
Jerusalem,  were  accorded  a  certain  preeminence  over 
others.     After  the  ark,   however,   was  installed  in  the 


''Deut.  10.  1-5. 

^*  Stade,  Biblische  Theologie  des  Alten  Testaments,  p.  117. 

^^  Martin  Dibelius,  Die  Lade  Jahves;  Gressmann,  Mose  und 
seine  Zeit,  pp.  449fF.    See  i  Sam.  4.  4;  2  Sam.  6.  2. 

"Num.  10.  35f.;  14.  42ff.,  E;  i  Sam.  3-  3;  4-  3ff-;  5-  7ff- ;  6.  19; 
2  Sam.  6.  iff. 

106 


THE  SPIRITUALITY  OF  GOD 

temple  at  Jerusalem,  interest  in  it  seems  to  have  declined. 
In  the  older  historical  books  no  mention  is  made  of  it 
after  i  Kings  8.  iff.  What  finally  became  of  it  we  do 
not  know.  It  was  probably  destroyed  with  the  temple  or 
carried  away  by  Nebuchadrezzar.  In  Deuteronomy  very 
little  significance  attaches  to  the  ark  as  such.  Interest 
centers  almost  wholly  in  the  tables  of  stone  contained  in 
it.  And  Jeremiah  goes  still  farther  in  divesting  it  of  its 
earlier  religious  importance.  He  declares  that  after  the 
restoration  of  the  people  "they  shall  say  no  more,  The 
ark  of  the  covenant  of  Jehovah;  neither  shall  it  come  to 
mind;  neither  shall  they  remember  it;  neither  shall  they 
miss  it;  neither  shall  it  be  made  any  more."  ^^ 

The  temple  at  Jerusalem  owed  its  preeminence  partly 
to  the  presence  of  the  ark,  but  especially  to  the  fact  that  it 
was  the  royal  sanctuary.  Its  importance  was  considerably 
lessened  by  the  division  of  the  monarchy.  But  after  the 
fall  of  the  northern  kingdom  and  the  remarkable  deliver- 
ance from  Sennacherib  it  became  again,  and  in  a  new  and 
heightened  sense,  the  religious  center  of  the  Hebrew  peo- 
ple. Isaiah  had  on  two  notable  occasions,  in  B.  C.  735 
and  701,  announced  the  inviolability  of  Jerusalem.  By 
this  he  did  not  mean  that  the  city  would  never  be  de- 
stroyed. What  he  meant  was  that  it  would  survive  the 
particular  perils  that  confronted  it  at  these  two  crises  of 
its  history.  A  later  age,  however,  understood  his  words 
in  an  absolute  sense.  In  the  time  of  Jeremiah  the  people 
gathered  about  the  temple  crying,  "The  temple  of  Je- 
hovah, the  temple  of  Jehovah,  the  temple  of  Jehovah,  are 
these."  ^^  the  implication  being  that  the  sacred  buildings 
and  the  surrounding  city  were  inviolable,  and  so  perfectly 

^'Jer.  3.  16. 
'^Jer.  7.4. 

107 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

safe,  no  matter  what  or  how  great  the  threatening  danger 
might  be.  The  fall  of  Jerusalem  in  B.  C.  586  brought  a 
rude  shock  to  this  faith.  But  after  the  return  from  the 
exile  and  the  rebuilding  of  the  temple  it  revived.  Jeru- 
salem became  again  a  fixed  point  in  the  divine  economy. 
In  all  the  pictures  of  the  future  it  occupied  a  central  place, 
and  the  divine  presence  was  in  a  unique  way  connected 
with  it.  There  is  one  passage  in  the  Old  Testament  that 
seems  to  represent  a  higher  standpoint.  In  Isa.  66.  1-2 
Yahweh  apparently  declares  that  he  has  no  interest  in  the 
rebuilding  of  the  temple,  that  what  he  is  alone  concerned 
about  is  the  man  "that  is  poor  and  of  a  contrite  spirit." 
So  contrary  is  this  to  the  teaching  of  the  Old  Testament 
as  a  whole  that  most  commentators  think  that  the  refer- 
ence here  must  be  to  some  schismatic  temple  such  as  that 
erected  on  Mount  Gerizim.  But  if  so,  it  is  strange  that 
there  should  be  nothing  in  the  text  to  indicate  the  fact. 
On  the  other  hand,  it  will  have  to  be  admitted  that,  if 
the  passage  was  intended  as  a  protest  against  the  rebuild- 
ing of  the  temple  at  Jerusalem,  it  remained  altogether  in- 
effective. Not  until  the  time  of  Stephen^^  was  it  used 
as  a  polemic  against  the  temple-worship.  Before  that 
time,  however,  Jesus  had  already  declare;d  in  words 
whose  import  could  not  be  mistaken  that  the  hour  was 
at  hand  when  neither  on  Mount  Gerizim  nor  at  Jerusalem 
should  men  worship  the  Father.  "God  is  a  Spirit :  and 
they  that  worship  him  must  worship  in  spirit  and  truth. "^*^ 

Sacrifices  and  a  certain  localization  of  the  divine  pres- 
ence maintained,  as  we  have  seen,  their  place  through- 
out the  Old  Testament  period.    The  Jews  apparently  saw 

''  Acts  7.  48-50. 
'"John  4.  21,  24. 

108 


THE  SPIRITUALITY  OF  GOD 

in  them  nothing  necessarily  inconsistent  with  the  spirit- 
uaHty  of  God.  But  not  so  with  the  use  of  images.  From 
a  very  early  time  the  feeling  was  current  in  Israel  that 
Yahweh  was  so  great  a  Being,  so  far  removed  from 
fleshly  weakness,  so  elevated  above  everything  material, 
that  it  was  an  offense  to  him  to  be  worshiped  by  means  of 
images.  This  feeling  grew  in  strength  until  finally  it  cul- 
minated in  an  iconoclastic  movement  that  brought  about 
the  complete  abolition  of  images  from  Israelitic  worship. 
So  characteristic  did  this  feature  of  Old  Testament  reli- 
gion become  that  all  heathen  worship  came  to  be  identified 
with  idolatry. 

The  history  of  the  anti-image  movement  in  Israel  is 
one  concerning  which  there  is  considerable  difference  of 
opinion.  Especially  is  this  true  of  its  earlier  stages.  He- 
brew tradition  carries  the  prohibition  of  images  back  to 
Moses,  and  makes  it  second  in  importance  only  to  the 
commandment  not  to  worship  other  gods.  But  the  prac- 
tice of  the  Hebrews  during  the  period  of  the  Judges  and 
for  several  centuries  subsequently  was  so  out  of  harmony 
with  the  second  commandment  of  the  Decalogue  that 
many  modern  scholars  have  concluded  that  this  command- 
ment, and,  indeed,  the  entire  Decalogue,  cannot  be  Mosaic, 
but  must  come  from  a  much  later  date.  It  was  Hosea, 
they  hold,  who  first  made  an  issue  of  image-worship. 
The  new  movement  begun  by  him  gained  headway  rap- 
idly, and  a  century  later  culminated  in  the  Deuteronomic 
reform.  From  that  time  on,  except  for  a  brief  relapse 
after  the  death  of  Josiah,  Israelitic  worship  was  image- 
less. 

The  reason  for  making  Hosea  the  originator  of  the 
iconoclastic  movement  is  that  he,  so  far  as  we  know,  was 
the  first  to  ridicule  and  scoff  at  the  worship  of  images. 

109 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

The  idols,  he  said,  were  man-made.  There  was  nothing 
divine  about  them.  They  were  simply  calves.  And  that 
men  should  actually  kiss  such  images  seemed  to  him  the 
height  of  absurdity.^^  But  this  very  attitude  on  his  part 
implies  that  his  antipathy  to  images  was  nothing  new. 
Had  it  been,  he  would  have  approached  the  subject  in  a 
quite  different  spirit.  He  would  have  sought  to  instruct 
the  people  and  to  prepare  their  minds  for  the  new  teach- 
ing. The  fact  that  he  instead  bursts  out  into  condemna- 
tion and  ridicule  is  itself  evidence  that  his  message  was 
not  new,  but  had  its  support  in  the  accepted  tradition. 
The  truth  is,  as  has  already  been  pointed  out,  that  the 
prophets  nowhere  represent  themselves  as  innovators. 
They  were  reformers,  and  were  simply  seeking  to  restore 
the  better  conditions  of  an  earlier  day.  In  so  doing  they 
no  doubt  at  the  same  time  made  an  advance,  and  an  im- 
portant advance.  But  this  advance  consisted  not  so  much 
in  the  promulgation  of  new  ideas  as  in  the  clarification 
and  deepening  of  convictions  already  present.  The  very 
success  achieved  by  the  prophets  would  have  been  impos- 
sible if  their  teaching  had  not  had  its  roots  in  the  past. 
Had  the  antipathy  to  image-worship  begun  with  Hosea, 
it  is  in  the  highest  degree  improbable  that  it  would  have 
become  the  law  of  the  land  a  century  later.  A  much 
longer  period  was  needed  to  prepare  for  such  a  movement 
as  the  Deuteronomic  reform.  Then,  too,  in  Exod.  20.  23 
and  34.  17,  which  are  admittedly  pre-Hoseanic,  molten 
images  are  expressly  forbidden.  That  this  implied  that 
the  use  of  graven  images  was  permitted,  is  a  wholly  gra- 
tuitous assumption.  Hosea  recognizes  no  distinction  be- 
tween molden  and  graven  images.*^     One  with  him  in- 

"Hos.  8.  4,  6;  13.2. 
*^u.  2;  13.  2. 

no 


THE  SPIRITUALITY  OF  GOD 

volved  the  other.  And  so  it  must  have  been  before  his 
time.  What  Hosea  did  was  simply  to  bring  the  earher 
antipathy  to  images  to  clearer  self -consciousness  and  to 
give  to  it  an  edge  and  dynamic  power  that  seems  to  have 
been  previously  lacking. 

At  what  time  previous  to  Hosea  the  anti-image  senti- 
ment in  Israel  arose  cannot  be  determined  with  certainty. 
But  there  is  no  conclusive  reason  why  it  should  not,  in  ac- 
cordance with  the  uniform  tradition  of  Scripture,  be  car- 
ried back  to  Moses.  The  objections  to  this  view  are 
chiefly  two:  the  silence  of  Elijah  and  Elisha,  and  the 
earlier  common  and  unrebuked  use  of  images.^^  Both  of 
these  objections,  however,  may  be  met  without  serious 
difficulty.  That  Elijah  and  Elisha  did  not  attack  the 
calf-worship  of  the  northern  realm  is  not  strange  in  view 
of  the  far  more  serious  task  which  confronted  them.  In 
their  day  the  very  existence  of  the  religion  of  Yahweh 
was  at  stake.  It  was  a  question  whether  he  or  Baal  was 
to  be  recognized  as  God.  In  the  presence  of  this  supreme 
question  minor  matters,  having  to  do  simply  with  the 
manner  of  worship,  naturally  sank  out  of  view.  For  Eli- 
jah and  Elisha  to  have  raised  the  question  of  image-wor- 
ship might  have  been  to  confuse  the  main  issue.  It  does 
not,  then,  follow  from  their  silence  that  they  approved  of 
the  calf-worship.  Indeed,  our  records  of  their  work  are 
so  scanty  that  we  do  not  even  know  that  they  did  not  ex- 
press disapproval  of  it. 

The  use  of  images  in  early  Israel  is  no  more  difficult  of 
explanation  than  the  similar  practice  in  the  Christian 
Church.  The  parallel  in  the  two  cases  is  interesting.^* 
The  Christians  accepted  the  second  commandment  and  be- 

"Judg.  8.  24ff. ;  17-18;  I  Sam.  19.  i2ff.;  i  Kings  12.  28f. 
"  See  J.  P.  Peters,  The  Religion  of  the  Hebrews,  p.  104. 

Ill 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

gan  as  an  imageless  church.  But  gradually  through  the 
influence  of  their  heathen  environment  they  fell  into  im- 
age-worship, and  in  so  doing  seemed  to  be  unconscious  of 
a  breach  of  the  Decalogue.  The  second  commandment 
they  apparently  interpreted  as  directed  against  heathen 
idol-worship.  Images  representative  of  other  gods  they 
condemned,  but  images  representative  of  their  own  God 
and  their  saints  they  placed  in  a  different  category  and 
seemed  to  regard  as  perfectly  proper.  Thus  they  finally 
developed  a  practical  polytheism.  And  so  it  was  in  Israel. 
Moses  forbade  the  use  of  images  and  gave  the  people, 
instead,  the  ark  as  a  symbol  and  guarantee  of  the  divine 
presence.  Where  the  ark  was  kept,  namely,  at  Shiloh  and 
Jerusalem,  the  worship  seems  to  have  been  imageless. 
But  elsewhere,  through  Canaanitic  influence,  images  were 
gradually  introduced.  As  representative  of  other  gods 
they  would  have  been  rejected  as  inconsistent  with  the 
Mosaic  tradition.  But  when  connected  with  the  worship 
of  Yahweh  the  feeling  apparently  was  that  there  was 
nothing  wrong  in  them.  In  this  way  idolatrous  practices 
grew  up  in  Israel  and  continued  in  vogue  until  finally 
the  prophetic  reform,  a  movement  similar  to  that  of  the 
Protestant  Reformation,  swept  them  away.  We  thus  see 
that  there  is  nothing  in  the  history  of  Israel  that  neces- 
sarily precludes  the  view  that  the  antipathy  to  image- 
worship  dates  from  the  time  of  Moses. 

We  need  not,  however,  hold  that  the  Mosaic  prohibition 
of  images  rested  upon  the  same  insight  into  the  spiritual- 
ity of  Yahweh  that  we  find  in  the  eighth-century  prophets. 
The  mere  fact  of  the  prohibition  manifestly  implies  that 
the  Mosaic  conception  of  God  was  in  some  regards  higher, 
more  spiritual,  than  that  of  the  Egyptians  and  other 
neighboring  peoples.    On  the  other  hand,  the  stress  placed 

112 


THE  SPIRITUALITY  OF  GOD 

on  the  ark  is  evidence  that  Yahweh  was  still  connected 
in  an  unspiritual  way  with  a  material  object.  People  as 
a  rule  probably  saw  no  important  difference  between  the 
ark  and  an  image.  If  Yahweh  could  be  represented  by 
the  former,  there  was  no  inherent  reason  why  he  might 
not  be  represented  by  the  latter.  Before  the  prohibition 
of  images  could  be  placed  on  an  adequate  basis,  it  was 
necessary  that  such  a  conception  of  the  transcendence  of 
Yahweh  and  of  his  essentially  ethical  character  be  at- 
tained as  would  preclude  the  possibility  of  his  representa- 
tion by  any  material  object.  And  this  is  the  view  that  we 
find  in  the  literary  prophets,  especially  in  Deutero-Isaiah. 
Over  and  over  again  the  latter  pours  his  pitiless  scorn  on 
all  attempts  to  represent  the  Divine  Being  by  means  of 
any  material  image.^^ 

To  the  pure  intellectualist  and  pantheist  this  icono- 
clastic spirit  may  seem  fanatical.  Why  not,  it  is  asked, 
concede  the  use  of  images  to  ignorant  people  as  an  aid  to 
their  imagination?  The  images  are,  of  course,  not  divine, 
but  they  may  be  helpful  as  symbols  of  the  divine  pres- 
ence. Such  has  always  been  the  apology  for  idolatry. 
But  the  Hebrew  prophets  would  hear  none  of  it.  With 
an  almost  unique  religious  insight  they  saw  the  inevitable 
perils  of  such  a  position,  and  set  their  faces  like  flint 
against  it.  Idols  to  them  were  simply  idols,  and  nothing 
more.  Between  them  and  Yahweh  there  could  be  no  con- 
nection. The  gulf  between  the  two  was  impassable.  On 
the  one  hand  was  pure  spirit,  on  the  other  man-made 
images  of  wood  and  stone,  gold  and  silver.  God  needed 
no  such  material  forms  through  which  to  reach  the  minds 
of  men.     He  was  spirit,  and  could  speak  directly  to  the 


Isa.  40.  18-20;  41.  6-7;  44.  9-20;  45.  20;  46.  1-2,  5-7. 
113 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

spirit  of  man.  Indeed,  the  spirit  of  man,  we  are  told,  is 
the  candle  of  the  Lord.^^  It  is  here  that  we  see  the  im- 
mense practical  importance  of  the  doctrine  of  the  Divine 
Spirit.  It  is  for  this  reason  that  the  Spirit  of  God  figures 
so  prominently  in  Scripture.  It  stands  opposed  to  the 
irrationality  of  idolatry  and  the  mummery  of  ceremonial- 
ism. 

The  question  is  sometimes  raised  as  to  whether  the 
Spirit  is  anywhere  in  the  Old  Testament  conceived  of  as 
a  distinct  Person.  There  was,  as  we  have  already  seen, 
a  tendency  in  that  direction,  but  only  a  tendency.'*^  The 
great  truth  with  which  the  Old  Testament  as  a  whole  was 
concerned  was  not  the  personality  of  the  Divine  Spirit, 
but  the  spirituality  of  the  Divine  Person. 

"  Prov.  20.  27. 
*''  See  p.  77. 


114 


CHAPTER  V 

THE  POWER  OF  GOD 

If  Schleiermacher  was  right  in  defining  religion  as  "the 
feeling  of  absolute  dependence,"  it  is  evident  that  power 
is  a  fundamental  attribute  in  the  religious  conception  of 
God.  What  first  awakened  the  religious  impulse  was  the 
consciousness  of  a  power  not  of  ourselves,  on  which  we 
are  dependent.  And  what  has  through  the  ages  kept  reli- 
gion alive  has  been  the  belief  that  this  power  might  in  one 
way  or  another  be  made  to  serve  our  ends.  It  is  conceiv- 
able that  a  different  attitude  might  have  been  taken  to  the 
invisible  power  by  which  we  are  surrounded.  Bertrand 
Russell,  for  instance,  in  an  eloquent  passage  thus  ex- 
presses himself:  "Brief  and  powerless  is  man's  life;  on 
him  and  all  his  race  the  slow,  sure  doom  falls  pitiless  and 
dark.  Blind  to  good  and  evil,  reckless  of  destruction, 
omnipotent  matter  rolls  on  its  relentless  way;  for  man, 
condemned  to-day  to  lose  his  dearest,  to-morrow  himself 
to  pass  through  the  gate  of  darkness,  it  remains  only  to 
cherish,  ere  yet  the  blow  falls,  the  lofty  thoughts  that 
ennoble  his  little  day;  disdaining  the  coward  terrors  of 
the  slave  of  fate,  to  worship  at  the  shrine  that  his  own 
hands  have  built;  undismayed  by  the  empire  of  chance,  to 
preserve  a  mind  free  from  the  wanton  tyranny  that  rules 
his  outward  life;  proudly  defiant  of  the  irresistible  forces 
which  tolerate,  for  a  moment,  his  knowledge  and  his  con- 
demnation, to  sustain  alone,  a  weary  but  unyielding  Atlas, 
the  world  that  his  own  ideals  have  fashioned  despite  the 

"S 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

trampling  march  of  unconscious  power."  ^  But  the  atti- 
tude thus  expressed  is  a  highly  artificial  one.  What  alone 
makes  such  a  view  possible  is  the  fact  that  the  ideals  of 
life  have  as  a  result  of  the  nurture  received  from  religion 
attained  a  ^wa.yi-independence.  They  are  seen  to  have  an 
inherent  worth  of  their  own,  and  so  are  thought  to  be  de- 
tachable from  the  faith  that  gave  them  birth.  They  may 
even,  as  here,  take  a  defiant  attitude  toward  the  basal 
power  of  the  universe ;  but  the  dualism  thus  created  in  our 
thought-life  is  not  one  in  which  the  human  mind  could 
long  rest.  Our  ideals  must  be  regarded  as  rooted  in  real- 
ity, or  they  will  fade  away.  The  power  not  ourselves  must 
be  looked  upon  as  friendly  to  our  strivings,  or  these  striv- 
ings will  themselves,  in  at  least  their  higher  and  more  diffi- 
cult forms,  cease.  Power  and  human  need  go  together. 
Human  need  requires  a  power  on  which  it  may  lean ;  and 
this  power  in  turn  must  be  not  only  friendly  but  also  ade- 
quate to  human  need.  Power  in  our  thought  of  God  is 
quite  as  basal  as  love,  and  originally  it  was  the  more  dis- 
tinctive factor.  This  is  illustrated  by  the  Hebrew  word 
for  God,  El  or  Elohim,  the  root  of  which  probably  meant 
"to  be  strong."  Strength  was  the  primary  characteristic 
of  Deity. 

In  our  discussion  of  the  personality,  unity,  and  spirit- 
uality of  God  we  have  already  dwelt  to  some  extent  upon 
the  power  of  Yahweh.  Power  is  so  basal  an  attribute 
that  it  is  to  some  degree  involved  in  all  the  others.  But 
certain  special  aspects  of  the  subject  still  remain  to  be 
considered,  and  these  we  take  up  in  the  present  chapter. 

It  is  frequently  asserted  that  Yahweh  was  at  the  outset 
a  war  god.  And  it  is  true  that  in  our  earliest  records  he 
appears  to  a  large  extent  in  this  light.     He  is  spoken  of 

'  Philosophical  Essays,  p.  70. 

116 


THE  POWER  OF  GOD 

as  "a  man  of  war."  ^  An  early  collection  of  songs  was 
called  "The  Book  of  the  Wars  of  Yahweh."  ^  Israel's  en- 
emies were  his  enemies;*  Israel's  wars  were  his  wars;^  Is- 
rael's armies  were  his  armies.®  The  title  "Yahweh  of 
hosts"  was  interpreted  as  meaning  "God  of  the  armies  of 
Israel."  '^  The  ark,  with  which  the  presence  of  Yahweh 
was  in  a  unique  way  connected,  was  a  battle  standard  as 
well  as  a  sanctuary.^  The  camp  of  Israel  was  sacred  to 
Yahweh.^  Men  dedicated  themselves  to  battle  as  to  a 
religious  service.  The  military  leaders  were  in  a  special 
sense  the  agents  of  Yahweh,  controlled  by  his  spirit.  But 
while  Yahweh  was  thus  in  the  early  history  of  Israel 
closely  connected  with  war,  it  is  a  mistake  to  suppose  that 
his  power  was  limited  to  the  battlefield.  He  was  not  a 
god  of  war  in  the  sense  that  the  other  interests  of  life 
lay  beyond  his  province.  It  is  frequently  stated  that 
Yahweh  had  at  first  nothing  to  do  with  the  private  con- 
cerns of  the  individual  or  with  the  soil  and  its  products. 
These  were  left  to  the  household  gods  and  the  local 
numina.  But  for  this  view  there  is  no  adequate  basis. 
No  doubt  local  numina  and  household  gods  continued  to 
be  worshiped  in  Israel  after  the  time  of  Moses,  but  this 
was  due  rather  to  the  force  of  habit  and  custom  than  to 
the  belief  that  Yahweh  was  limited  to  any  particular  field 
or  form  of  activity.  From  the  beginning  he  was  God  of 
Israel,  and  sole  God  of  Israel.    No  partition  of  the  life  of 


'  Exod.  IS.  3. 
*Num.  21.  14,  E. 

*  I  Sam.  30.  26. 

^  Exod.  17.  I5f.,  E;  Judg.  S-  23 ;  i  Sam.  18.  17;  25.  28. 
'  I  Sam.  17.  26,  36. 
^  I  Sam.  17.  45. 

*  I  Sam.  4.  3-1 1 ;  Num.  lo.  35f.,  E. 
'  Deut.  2^.  9,  14. 

117 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

the  nation  was  made;  the  whole  of  it  was  under  his  con- 
trol. The  reason  why  he  seems  more  closely  connected 
with  war  than  other  lines  of  activity  is  that  wars  were  at 
first  the  supreme  interest  of  the  nation.  Israel  had  the 
task  of  conquering  Canaan,  and  then  consolidating  their 
newly  won  territory  against  hostile  attacks  both  from 
within  and  without.  This  task  engaged  the  energies  of 
the  nation  for  several  centuries,  and  during  this  time  it 
was  inevitable  that  the  battlefield  should  be  the  place 
where  the  divine  presence  would  be  most  urgently  sought 
and  the  divine  help  most  clearly  perceived.  But  this  by 
no  means  implies  that  either  the  power  or  interest  of  Yah- 
weh  was  limited  to  war. 

It  may  be  added  that  what  has  been  said  of  the  concep- 
tion of  Yahweh  as  a  war  god  holds  true  also  of  the  view 
that  he  was  originally  a  storm  god  or  volcano  god.  Yah- 
weh is  often  associated  with  lightning  and  thunder,  and 
volcanic  phenomena. ^°  But  all  this  means  is  that  it  was 
such  striking  natural  phenomena  as  these  that  seemed  to 
the  ancient  Hebrews  to  be  the  most  impressive  manifesta- 
tions of  the  divine  power.  Yahweh's  power  was  no  more 
limited  to  these  phenomena  than  it  was  to  the  battlefield.^^ 

Another  error  into  which  writers  on  the  Old  Testa- 
ment not  infrequently  fall  is  that  of  assuming  that  Yah- 
weh was  at  the  outset  so  closely  identified  with  the  nation 
that  his  power  was  hardly  more  than  commensurate  with 


"Exod.  19.  i6ff.,  JE;  20.  i8ff.,  E;  i  Kings  19.  iif.;  Psa.  18.  13!.; 
29.  3ff. 

"  In  an  interesting  article  on  "Beginnings  of  Hebrew  Monothe- 
ism— The  Ineffable  Name,"  in  the  Methodist  Review,  1902,  pp. 
24-35,  President  W.  F.  Warren  argues  that  "Yah,"  the  original  form 
of  "Yahweh,"  was  the  West-Semitic  form  of  the  East-Semitic  or 
Proto-Semitic  Ea,  the  God  of  waters,  citing  in  support  of  this  view 
the  numerous  water-miracles  attributed  to  Yahweh. 

118 


THE  POWER  OF  GOD 

that  of  the  people  themselves.  He  was  limited  geograph- 
ically as  they  were.  When  they  were  defeated  in  battle 
he  was  defeated.  When  they  were  victorious,  he  was 
victorious.  His  achievements  were  limited  by  theirs. 
This  was  a  not  uncommon  view  of  the  relation  of  a  tribal 
deity  to  his  people,  and  no  doubt  it  had  some  currency  in 
Israel.  The  very  fact  that  Yahweh  was  worshiped  by  the 
Israelites  alone  would  seem  to  imply  that  his  rule  was  lim- 
ited to  them.  David,  for  instance,  is  represented  as  say- 
ing that  for  him  to  be  driven  out  of  his  native  land  was 
equivalent  to  being  forced  to  serve  other  gods.^^  And 
this  method  of  expression  appears  also  in  so  late  a  book 
as  that  of  Ruth.  The  Moabitess  here  says  to  her  mother- 
in-law,  as  she  resolves  to  accompany  her  to  Judah,  "Thy 
people  shall  be  my  people,  and  thy  God  my  God."  Re- 
moval to  another  country  meant  to  her  a  change  of  reli- 
gion. This  was  the  common  view  of  antiquity,  and  it 
seems  to  have  been  held  by  the  early  Israelites  as  well  as 
by  others.  But  while  this  fact  seems  to  involve  a  geo- 
graphical limitation  of  Yahweh's  power,  it  did  not  neces- 
sarily do  so.  In  the  early  patriarchal  narratives  Yahweh 
is  represented  as  manifesting  himself  to  his  servants 
wherever  they  might  be,  in  Egypt  or  the  distant  East.^^ 
However  much  he  might  be  attached  to  the  promised  land 
and  to  sacred  places  in  it,  he  was  not  bound  in  an  exclu- 
sive sense  to  it.  From  the  beginning  there  was  something 
transcendent  about  his  nature,  something  that  resisted 
every  tendency  to  restrict  him  to  a  particular  place  or  to 
identify  him  in  an  absolute  way  with  his  own  people.  He 
was  from  the  outset  supernational,  and  in  a  true  sense  also 
supramundane. 

'"  I  Sam.  26.  19;  compare  Gen.  4.  14,  J. 
"  Gen.  12.  I ;  24.  i2ff. ;  26.  i2ff.,  J ;  46.  4,  E. 

119 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

The  key  to  the  early  theology  of  the  Hebrews  is  to  be 
found  in  the  distinction  between  their  practical  postulates 
and  their  theoretical  beliefs.  The  latter  were  vague,  un- 
settled, and  imperfect.  Thought  at  that  time  was  so  un- 
developed and  knowledge  so  limited  that  one  could  hardly 
expect  clear  conceptions  of  the  world,  of  God,  and  of 
their  relation  to  each  other.  Questions  concerning  the 
nature  of  God  and  the  extent  of  his  power  had  very  little 
interest  for  the  early  Israelites.  They  did  not  reflect 
enough  on  matters  of  this  kind  to  feel  the  intellectual 
necessity  of  asserting  the  absoluteness  of  God,  his  omnip- 
otence, omniscence,  and  omnipresence;  and  there  was, 
of  course,  no  accepted  teaching  on  the  subject  that  had 
been  handed  down  to  them.  The  result  is  that  we  find  in 
the  Old  Testament  not  a  few  expressions  and  beliefs  that 
seem  to  imply  very  distinct  limitations  of  Yahweh's  being 
and  power.  The  admitted  existence  of  other  gods  would 
seem  clearly  to  limit  the  extent  of  his  power.  His  abode 
in  heaven  and  his  localization  at  Sinai.  Zion,  and  other 
sanctuaries  would  seem  to  restrict  the  range  of  his  being. 
Such  statements  as  those  in  Gen.  ii.  5  (J)  and  18.  21  (J), 
where  Yahweh  is  represented  as  going  down  to  the  tower 
of  Babel  and  Sodom,  in  order  to  ascertain  the  true  situa- 
tion, seem  plainly  to  imply  a  limitation  of  his  knowledge. 
And  so  the  anthropomorphic  expressions  in  general  of  the 
preprophetic  period  seem  to  rule  out  the  thought  of  the 
divine  absoluteness. 

But  while  all  this  is  true  from  the  theoretical  point  of 
view,  the  situation  is  quite  different  from  the  practical 
or  religious  standpoint.  Such  limitations  and  imperfec- 
tions as  seem  to  have  characterized  the  early  intellectual 
conceptions  of  Yahweh's  power  formed,  so  far  as  we  can 
see,  no  conscious  barrier  to  faith  itself.    The  early  Israel- 

220 


THE  POWER  OF  GOD 

ite  from  the  beginning  felt  that  he  had  in  Yahweh  one  who 
would  meet  all  his  needs.  "Is  anything,"  he  asked,  "too 
hard  for  Jehovah  ?^*  "There  is  no  restraint  to  Jehovah," 
said  Jonathan  to  his  armor-bearer,  "to  save  by  many  or 
by  few.^^  Yahweh  was  able  to  do  whatever  he  wished. 
For  all  practical  purposes  he  was  omnipotent.  He  could 
do  whatever  the  Hebrews  needed  to  have  done.  He  also 
knew  all  they  needed  to  know.  Numerous  incidents  are 
recorded  that  reveal  his  supernatural  wisdom  and  power. 
The  very  existence  of  the  priestly  oracle  implies  that  it 
was  believed  that  he  knew  all  hidden  and  future  things. 
As  the  Israelite  approached  Yahweh  in  prayer  there  was 
no  consciousness  of  any  limitation  of  his  knowledge  or 
power  or  presence.  To  the  believing  heart  he  was  abso- 
lute. 

This  does  not  mean  that  the  early  Hebrew  had  a  clear 
conception  of  Yahweh's  unlimited  power.  Various  facts 
already  cited  imply  the  contrary.  It  means  simply  that  he 
was  believed  to  be  equal  to  all  the  needs  of  his  people. 
These  needs  did  not  call  for  a  Deity  who  was  absolute  in 
the  theological  sense  of  the  term ;  and  hence  there  are,  as 
we  have  seen,  in  the  early  literature  of  the  Old  Testament 
statements  that  seem  to  limit  his  power  and  being.  But 
these  limitations  were  primarily  due,  not  to  the  nature  of 
Yahweh,  but  to  the  needs  of  the  people.  There  was 
nothing  in  the  conception  of  Yahweh  itself  that  neces- 
sarily limited  him  to  Canaan  or  to  any  particular  people. 
It  was  the  historic  conditions  that  imposed  these  limita- 
tions. The  Hebrews  as  yet  felt  no  need  of  a  universal 
Deity.  When  they  finally  did,  Yahweh  proved  equal  to 
the  need.    There  was  something  elastic,  expansive  about 

"  Gen.  i8.  14,  J, 
^'  I  Sam.  14.  6. 

121 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

the  Mosaic  conception  of  Yahweh  that  made  it  impossible 
that  he  should  be  permanently  limited  to  a  single  nation. 
He  was  from  the  outset,  as  Jastrow  says,  "a  national 
Deity  largely  in  name  only."  "The  limitations  to  his 
scope  and  jurisdiction"  were  "circumstantial  rather  than 
essential,  so  that  the  Prophets  obeyed  a  correct  instinct  in 
attaching  their  conception  of  a  universal  power  to  the  God 
of  Moses."  ^^ 

"In  early  [Semitic]  heathenism,"  says  Robertson 
Smith,  "the  really  vital  question  is  not  what  a  god  has 
power  to  do,  but  whether  I  can  get  him  to  do  it  for  me, 
and  this  depends  on  the  relation  in  which  he  stands  to 
me."  ^^  If  the  relation  is  intimate  and' profound,  there  is 
hardly  any  limit  to  what  the  worshiper  may  ask  and 
expect  of  his  god.  But  this  question  of  one's  relation  to 
the  Deity  is  just  the  uncertain  factor  in  early  religion. 
And  here  it  is  that  the  unique  religious  genius  of  early 
Israel  manifests  itself.  The  relation  established  between 
Yahweh  and  Israel  was  so  deep,  so  firm,  so  intense,  that 
it  was  able  to  bear  the  strain  of  every  crisis  through  which 
the  nation  was  forced  to  pass.  And  it  was  made  so  durable 
because  it  was  founded  not  on  any  formal  or  authoritative 
teaching,  but  on  a  great  experience,  a  mighty  act  of  deliv- 
erance, which  evoked  from  the  people  so  deep  a  gratitude 
and  loyalty  that  there  was  no  limit  to  the  confidence  they 
reposed  in  their  God.  That  this  confidence  did  not  at  first 
rest  upon  a  clear  conception  of  Yahweh's  unlimited  power 
is  not  strange,  nor  is  it  significant.  The  significant  thing 
in  the  early  religion  of  Israel  was  not  the  imperfect  be- 
liefs about  God,  but  the  passionate  devotion  to  him,  which 
led  the  people  to  feel  that  there  was  no  limit  to  his  power 

"  Hebrew  and  Babylonian  Traditions,  p.  282. 
"  The  Religion  of  the  Semites,  p.  83. 

122 


THE  POWER  OF  GOD 

to  help  those  who  beheved  in  him.  It  was  this  devotion 
to  him  that  was  the  moving- force  in  Israel's  religious  de- 
velopment. This  devotion  was  also  a  more  or  less  con- 
stant factor  throughout  the  entire  Old  Testament  period. 
It  is  for  this  reason  that  so  distinguished  and  openminded 
a  scholar  as  A.  B.  Davidson  was  able  to  say  after  a  life- 
time of  study  that  it  was  his  impression  "that  even  in  the 
most  ancient  passages  of  the  Old  Testament  essentially 
the  same  thought  of  Yahweh  is  to  be  found  as  appears  in 
the  Prophets  and  the  later  literature."  ^^  The  "thought 
of  Yahweh,"  of  which  this  statement  is  true,  was  that 
practical  religious  conception  of  his  nature  and  power  in- 
volved in  loyal  devotion  to  him.  This  conception  re- 
mained virtually  constant  throughout.  What  developed 
was  its  theoretical  implications.  And  here  we  come  upon 
two  interesting  and  disputed  questions.  When  did  Yah- 
weh, God  of  Israel,  first  come  to  be  regarded  as  creator 
of  the  world  ?  and  when  did  he  come  to  be  looked  upon  as 
the  sole  controlling  force  in  human  history? 

These  two  questions  are  manifestly  related  to  each 
other.  The  first  would  seem  logically  to  involve  the 
second.  If  Yahweh  was  the  creator  of  the  world,  it 
would  seem  that  his  rule  in  the  world  must  be  universal. 
But  as  a  matter  of  fact  such  was  not  the  view  of  antiquity. 
The  idea  that  a  certain  God  was  creator  of  heaven  and 
earth  did  not  necessarily  exclude  the  existence  of  other 
gods.  These  other  gods  were  no  doubt  looked  upon  as 
less  powerful  than  the  Creator-God,  but  they  were  none 
the  less  real,  and  each  had  his  own  province  in  human 
life.  In  Babylonian  mythology  Ea,  the  water-god;  Enlil, 
the  storm-god ;  and  Marduk,  the  sun-god  were  each  at  dif- 

'*  The  Theology  of  the  Old  Testament,  p.  i8o. 

123 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

ferent  times  looked  upon  as  the  creator  of  everything. 
But  this  did  not  exclude  the  existence  of  a  vast  pantheon, 
nor  did  it  exclude  the  idea  that  other  peoples  were  ruled 
by  their  own  gods.  The  conception  of  Yahweh  as 
creator  did  not,  then,  necessarily  include  the  thought  of 
his  universal  rule.  The  latter  idea  may  quite  possibly 
have  originated  later  than  the  former.  In  any  case  it 
is  best  to  discuss  the  two  separately. 

We  begin  with  the  idea  of  the  creatorship  of  Yahweh. 
It  was  Deutero-Isaiah  who  first  gave  to  this  conception 
profound  religious  significance.  He  made  it  a  funda- 
mental article  of  belief.  Again  and  again  he  comes  back 
to  it.  "Who,"  he  asks,  "hath  measured  the  waters  in  the 
hollow  of  his  hand,  and  meted  out  heaven  with  the  span? 
.  .  .  Lift  up  your  eyes  on  high,  and  see  who  hath  cre- 
ated these,  that  bringeth  out  their  host  by  number.  .  .  . 
Thus  saith  God  Jehovah,  he  that  createth  the  heavens,  and 
stretcheth  them  forth;  he  that  spread  abroad  the  earth 
and  that  which  cometh  out  of  it.  .  .  .1  have  made 
the  earth,  and  created  man  upon  it :  I,  even  my  hands, 
have  stretched  out  the  heavens;  and  all  their  host 
have  I  commanded.  .  .  .  Yea,  my  hand  hath  laid  the 
foundation  of  the  earth,  and  my  right  hand  hath  spread 
out  the  heavens.  ...  I  am  Jehovah,  that  maketh  all 
things;  that  stretcheth  forth  the  heavens  alone;  that 
spreadeth  abroad  the  earth."  ^^  It  was  not  the  novelty  of 
the  idea  that  led  the  great  prophet  of  the  exile  to  revert 
so  frequently  to  it,  but  the  practical  religious  value  that 
it  had  for  him.  The  Jews  were  at  the  time  without  any 
organized  government,  scattered  throughout  the  world, 
and  surrounded  by  an  imposing  heathen  civilization  that 
seemed  to  give  the  lie  to  their  most  cherished  faith.    Hope 

"40.  12,  26;  42.  5;  45.  12;  44.  24;  48.  13. 

124 


THE  POWER  OF  GOD 

had  to  a  large  extent  died  out.  There  was  no  immediate 
prospect  of  relief.  What  they  consequently  needed  above 
everything  else  was  comfort.  And  this  Deutero-Isaiah 
found  in  the  great  thought  that  the  covenant-God  of 
Israel  was  none  other  than  the  creator  of  heaven  and 
earth.  "The  everlasting  God,  Jehovah,  the  Creator  of 
the  ends  of  the  earth,  fainteth  not,  neither  is  weary. 
He  giveth  power  to  the  faint;  and  to  him  that  hath  no 
might  he  increaseth  strength."  ^^ 

Shortly  after  the  time  of  Deutero-Isaiah  appeared  the 
Priestly  Code  with  its  noble  account  of  creation.^^  We 
need  not  here  dwell  upon  its  exalted  spiritual  conception 
of  God  nor  its  lofty  view  of  human  nature.  These  facts 
are  familiar  to  the  reader.  The  only  point  we  need  here 
direct  attention  to  is  the  growing  interest  that  the  nar- 
rative seems  to  reveal  in  the  divine  creatorship.  People 
have  now  begun  to  reflect  on  it,  to  draw  out  its  monothe- 
istic implications,  and  to  find  in  it  a  doctrine  that  min- 
isters alike  to  their  comfort  and  spiritual  edification.  It 
is  only  natural,  then,  that  the  thought  of  the  creative 
activity  of  God  should  figure  more  prominently  in  the 
literature  after  this  time  (about  B.  C.  500)  than  here- 
tofore. We  find  it  in  some  of  the  most  beautiful  of  the 
psalms. 

"The  heavens  declare  the  glory  of  God; 
And  the  firmament  showeth  his  handiwork."  ^^ 

The  heavens  are  the  work  of  his  fingers,  and  the  sun  and 
the  moon  and  the  stars  he  has  ordained.^^     "He  com- 


^  Isa.  40.  28,  29. 
"  Gen.  I.  I  to  2.  4a. 
''19.  I. 
^'8.3. 

125 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

manded,  and  they  were  created."  ^*  "He  spake,  and  it 
was  done."  ^^  It  is  thou,  O  Yahweh,  "Who  stretchest 
out  the  heavens  like  a  curtain;  who  laid  the  foundations 
of  the  earth."  ^^  In  Proverbs  also  the  idea  is  impressively 
expressed.^'^  And  the  book  of  Job  is  pervaded  with  it. 
Here  not  only  are  the  heavens  and  the  earth  represented 
as  the  work  of  Yahweh,  but  they  are  declared  to  be  simply 
the  outskirts  of  his  ways,  a  mere  whisper  when  compared 
with  the  mighty  thunder  of  his  power.^^ 

The  creatorship  of  Yahweh,  it  is  thus  clear,  was  a  well- 
established  belief  in  Israel  from  the  time  of  Deutero- 
Isaiah  on.  But  the  belief  did  not  originate  with  him. 
"Have  ye  not  known?"  he  asks,  "have  ye  not  heard? 
hath  it  not  been  told  you  from  the  beginning?  have  ye  not 
understood  from  the  foundations  of  the  earth?  It  is  he 
that  sitteth  above  the  circle  of  the  earth,  and  the  inhabit- 
ants thereof  are  as  grasshoppers;  that  stretcheth  out  the 
heavens  as  a  curtain,  and  spreadeth  them  out  as  a  tent  to 
dwell  in."  ^^  That  Yahweh  was  creator  of  heaven  and 
earth  was  evidently  a  truth  that  Deutero-Isaiah  looked 
upon  as  having  been  handed  down  from  the  distant  past. 
But  how  far  back  can  it  be  traced?  When  did  it  orig- 
inate? On  this  point  there  is  wide  difference  of  opinion. 
Some  contend  that  it  originated  only  shortly  before  the 
time  of  Deutero-Isaiah;  others  carry  it  back  to  the  early 
preprophetic  period. 

In  favor  of  the  former  date  three  different  lines  of 
argument  are  adduced.  One  is  based  on  general  consid- 
erations relative  to  the  development  of  religious  thought 
in  Israel.    Stade,  for  instance,  says  that  a  people,  such  as 

"148.  s-  "8.  22-31. 

''33-  9.  "26.  14. 

'"104.2,5.  ^^Isa.  40.  2if. 

126 


THE  POWER  OF  GOD 

preprophetic  Israel,  whose  outlook  hardly  extended  be- 
yond the  limits  of  Canaan,  could  not  in  the  nature  of  the 
case  have  raised  cosmological  problems,  and  that  the  idea 
of  Yahweh's  creative  activity  could  not,  consequently, 
have  originated  until  about  the  seventh  century  B.  C.^*^ 
But  this  argument  is  really  a  glaring  instance  of  what 
has  been  called  the  psychological  fallacy.  Stade  seems  to 
think  that  the  preprophetic  Israelite  with  his  limited 
knowledge  of  the  world  was  as  conscious  of  that  limita- 
tion as  we  to-day  are,  and  that,  therefore,  the  idea  of  the 
world  as  a  whole  lay  beyond  his  grasp.  But  the  fact,  of 
course,  is  that  the  world  of  the  early  Hebrew  was  as  com- 
plete to  him  as  our  world  is  to  us  to-day,  and  hence  the 
question  of  its  origin  may  quite  as  well  have  presented 
itself  to  his  mind  as  to  ours.  This  is  evident  also  from 
the  history  of  thought  among  other  early  peoples.  "Crea- 
tion stories  abound  everywhere  among  people  in  a  primi- 
tive state  of  culture."  ^^  "There  is  no  people  of  antiquity 
now  known  to  us  which  does  not  possess  a  creation  story 
of  some  kind."  ^^  These  facts,  it  is  clear,  make  it  not 
only  possible  but  in  the  highest  degree  probable  that  the 
idea  of  Yahweh's  creative  activity  originated  early  and 
not  late  in  Israel's  history.  Indeed,  creation  stories  may 
have  been  known  to  the  Hebrews  even  before  the  time  of 
Moses. 

A  second  argument  urged  in  favor  of  the  late  origin  of 
the  creation-idea  is  the  paucity,  if  not  complete  absence, 
of  references  to  it  in  the  early  literature.  The  preexilic 
prophets,  it  is  said,  make  no  mention  of  it,  nor  is  there 
any  reference  to  it  in  any  early  passage,  unless  we  ac- 

^  Biblische  Theologie  des  Alten  Testaments,  p.  239. 
^^  Morris  Jastrow,  Hebrew  and  Babylonian  Traditions,  p.  65. 
**  R.  W.  Rogers,  The  Religion  of  Babylonia  and  Assyria,  p.  lOO. 

127 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

cept,  as  most  scholars  do,  the  reading  of  i  Kings  8.  12-13, 
found  in  the  Septuagint.  Cheyne  thus  renders  this 
ancient  fragment: 

The  sun  did  Yahweh  settle  in  heaven, 

But  he  said  he  would  (himself)  dwell  in  dark  clouds. 

I  have  built  a  lofty  house  for  thee, 

A  settled  place  for  thy  habitation. 

These  words  are  ascribed  to  Solomon.  They  are  repre- 
sented as  having  been  used  by  him  at  the  dedication  of 
the  temple,  and  there  is  no  good  ground  for  rejecting  the 
tradition.  They  clearly  imply  that  Yahweh  was  regarded 
as  the  creator  of  the  sun,  and  if  so  naturally  as  the  creator 
of  the  heavens  and  earth  also.  But  a  single  text  such 
as  this  would,  of  course,  not  be  regarded  as  adequate 
proof  of  the  early  existence  of  the  creation-idea,  if  it  was 
not  supported  by  confirmatory  evidence.  In  this  connec- 
tion we  might  refer  to  the  statement  in  the  Song  of  De- 
borah that  the  stars  in  their  courses  fought  against 
Sisera.^^  This  expression  evidently  implies  that  the 
heavenly  bodies  were  under  the  control  of  Yahweh,  and 
were  probably  his  creation.  A  similar  inference  might 
also  be  drawn  from  the  early  poetic  fragment,  taken  from 
the  Book  of  Jashar,  which  represents  Joshua  as  com- 
manding the  sun  and  moon  to  stand  still.^'* 

But  more  important  than  individual  utterances  such  as 
these  is  the  attitude  of  the  early  prophets.  It  is  true  that 
these  prophets  do  not  preach  the  creatorship  of  Yahweh 
as  did  Deutero-Isaiah.  But  it  by  no  means  follows  that 
the  idea  was  unknown  to  them.  Their  mission  was  simply 
different  from  that  of  Deutero-Isaiah.  It  was  their  task 
not  to  draw  consolation  from  the  thought  of  Yahweh's 


'  Judg.  5.  20. 
Josh.  10.  12-13. 

128 


THE  POWER  OF  GOD 

creative  activity,  but  to  declare  that  Yahweh,  the  God  of 
Israel,  was  also  the  moral  governor  of  the  world,  and  that 
as  such  he  would  punish  all  nations  for  their  sins,  espe- 
cially Israel.  Only  incidentally  then,  if  at  all,  would  we 
expect  to  find  in  their  utterances  any  reference  to  his  cre- 
ative activity.  We  have  such  a  reference  in  Amos  4.  13, 
and,  although  it  is  now  the  fashion  to  ascribe  this  and 
the  other  two  "nature  passages"  ^^  to  a  later  hand,  it  is 
quite  possible  that  they  all  came  from  Amos.  In  any  case, 
they  certainly  fit  in  with  his  exalted  conception  of  God. 
And  surely  a  prophet  such  as  Isaiah,  who  represents  the 
seraphim  as  saying  that  the  whole  earth  is  full  of  the 
glory  of  Yahweh,^^  must  have  believed  in  his  creatorship. 
This  idea  in  all  probability  formed  the  background  of 
the  teaching  of  all  the  earlier  prophets.  It  stands  in  an 
especially  close  relation  to  their  eschatology,  the  day  of 
Yahweh  to  which  they  looked  forward.  This  day,  as  we 
shall  see  in  a  later  chapter,  was  to  be  a  day  marked  by  a 
marvelous  manifestation  of  divine  power.  A  new  world- 
order  was  to  be  established,  which  would  rival  the  glories 
of  the  golden  age  of  the  past.  As  Yahweh  was  to  insti- 
tute the  new  order,  he  must  also  have  been  regarded  as 
the  author  of  the  old  order.  The  world  past  as  well  as 
future  must  have  owed  its  origin  to  him.  What  the 
prophets,  it  is  true,  chiefly  reflected  on  was  the  moral,  not 
the  physical,  order.  But  between  these  two  orders  they 
made  no  sharp  distinction.  In  both  Yahweh  was  for 
them  "the  everlasting  creator  of  new  things." 

The  third  argument  in  favor  of  the  view  that  the  crea- 
tion-idea did  not  originate  until  late  in  Israel's  history  is 
based  on  the  assumption  that  the  idea  was  borrowed  from 


"5.  8-9;  9.  5-6. 
"6.3- 


139 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

the  Babylonians  and  that  the  borrowing  could  not  have 
taken  place  until  after  Israel  had  come  into  contact  with 
the  Assyrians  toward  the  close  of  the  eighth  century. 
Now,  it  is  quite  possible  that  the  Hebrew  idea  of  creation 
was  derived  from  the  Babylonians,  and  it  is  unquestion- 
ably true  that  the  biblical  narrative  of  creation  betrays 
Babylonian  influence,  but  it  is  by  no  means  certain,  nor 
even  probable,  that  this  influence  was  first  introduced  into 
Israel  after  the  eighth  century.  The  priestly  account 
of  creation  was  probably  put  into  its  present  form  about 
B.  C.  500,  but  the  material  embodied  in  it  had  almost  cer- 
tainly before  that  time  had  a  long  history  in  Israel.  The 
antipathy  to  everything  heathenish  was  so  pronounced 
during  the  exile  and,  indeed,  in  prophetic  circles  from  the 
eighth  century  down,  that  it  is  in  the  highest  degree  im- 
probable that  such  a  crude  polytheistic  myth  as  the  Baby- 
lonian account  of  creation  could  during  this  period  have 
been  introduced  into  Israel  and  worked  up  into  the  biblical 
narrative.  For  the  introduction  of  this  myth  into  Israel 
we  must  go  back  to  a  much  earlier  date.  Babylonian 
culture,  as  we  know  from  the  Tel-el- Amarna  tablets,  was 
diff^used  throughout  southwest  Asia  before  the  settlement 
of  the  Hebrews  in  Palestine.  The  creation  myths  were 
current  among  the  Canaanites.  It  was,  then,  only  natural, 
indeed  inevitable,  that  the  Israelites  should  learn  of  these 
myths  from  the  Canaanites  among  whom  they  settled. 
Yahweh  was  substituted  for  the  Babylonian  gods,  and 
gradually  the  stories  as  a  whole  were  transmuted  into  a 
form  consonant  with  the  higher  faith  of  Israel.  That  the 
process  of  transformation  was  a  long  one  is  indicated  by 
the  marked  contrast  between  the  Babylonian  and  biblical 
narratives.    It  should  also  be  noted  that  the  J  document^^ 

='  Gen.  2.  4b. 

130 


THE  POWER  OF  GOD 

seems  originally  to  have  begun  with  an  account  of  crea- 
tion so  similar  to  that  in  P  that  it  was  omitted  by  the  edi- 
tors of  the  Pentateuch;  and,  if  so,  the  creation-idea  must 
have  existed  in  a  developed  form  as  early  as  the  ninth 
century  B.  C. 

Another  consideration  pointing  in  the  same  direction  is 
the  frequent  allusions  in  the  Old  Testament  to  a  dragon 
myth  akin  to  that  found  in  the  Babylonian  account  of 
creation.^^  In  the  Bible  Rahab'"^^  and  Leviathan^*^  take 
the  place  of  the  Babylonian  Tiamat.  The  references  to 
this  myth  appear  chiefly  in  the  exilic  and  postexilic  liter- 
ature, but  they  are  so  numerous  and  occur  in  a  way  that 
implies  such  familiarity  with  the  myth  that  it  cannot  have 
been  a  recent  importation.  We  conclude,  consequently, 
that  the  idea  of  Yahweh's  creatorship  appeared  early  in 
the  history  of  Israel.  From  virtually  the  outset  Yahweh 
was  to  Israel  all  that  Marduk  was  to  the  Babylonians. 
But  only  gradually  did  the  full  religious  significance  of 
the  idea  dawn  upon  the  people.  Not  until  the  time  of 
Deutero-Isaiah  was  it  made  the  logical  basis  of  universal- 
ism. 

We  now  turn  to  the  idea  of  the  universal  rule  of  Yah- 
weh. This  idea  is  clearly  implied  in  the  teaching  of  the 
eighth-century  prophets.  According  to  Amos,  Yahweh 
had  not  only  brought  Israel  out  of  Egypt,  but  had  led  the 
Philistines  from  Caphtor  and  the  Syrians  from  Kir.^^ 
Nor  was  his  power  limited  to  earth.     It  reached  high 


^  See  Morris  Jastrow,   Hebrew  and  Babylonian   Traditions,  pp, 
I07ff.,  and  H.  Gunkel's  Schupfiing  und  Chaos. 

*"  Job  26.  12-13;  9-  13;  Isa.  51.  9;  Psa.  89.  10;  87.  4;  Isa.  30.  7. 
*°  Psa.  74.  12-17;  Isa.  27.  I ;  Job  41.  1-8;  Psa.  104.  26. 
"  Amos  9.  7. 

131 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

as  heaven  and  deep  as  Sheol.  ^^  Isaiah  speaks  of  Assyria 
as  the  rod  of  Yahweh's  anger  and  the  staff  of  his  indigna- 
tion.^^ Yahweh  was  using  Assyria  to  accompHsh  his  pur- 
pose in  the  world,  and  when  this  purpose  was  accom- 
pHshed  Assyria  itself  would  be  overthrown.  "This  is  the 
purpose  that  is  purposed  upon  the  whole  earth;  and  this 
is  the  hand  that  is  stretched  out  upon  all  the  nations."  ^* 
We  have  here  the  distinct  idea  of  a  world-purpose.  There 
is  a  world-goal  to  be  attained,  and  Yahweh  is  directing 
the  course  of  events  toward  that  end.  In  the  accomplish- 
ment of  this  end  Israel  has  a  unique  mission.  She  is  the 
chosen  of  Yahweh.  But  what  this  mission  implied,  so 
far  as  other  nations  were  concerned,  apparently  did  not 
form  a  subject  of  special  reflection  with  the  eighth-cen- 
tury prophets.  In  one  notable  passage,*^  whose  authen- 
ticity, however,  has  been  questioned,  Isaiah  represents 
Israel  as  the  future  religious  center  of  the  world.  But 
not  until  we  come  to  Deutero-Isaiah  is  the  idea  of  Israel's 
world-mission  made  prominent.  Here  Israel  is  repre- 
sented as  "a  light  to  the  Gentiles."  *^  Through  her  Yah- 
weh's salvation  is  to  be  brought  unto  the  end  of  the  earth. 
But  however  late  this  thought  may  have  been  in  develop- 
ing, and  whatever  the  attitude  of  the  eighth-century 
prophets  may  have  been  toward  it,  there  can  be  no  doubt 
that  from  their  time  on  the  idea  of  the  universal  rule  of 
Yahweh  was  well  established  in  Israel.  They  made  it 
unmistakably  clear  that  Yahweh,  God  of  Israel,  was  the 
moral  ruler  of  the  entire  world. 

But  when  did  the  idea  of  Yahweh's  world-power  and 
world-purpose  originate?     Were  these  ideas  altogether 

"9.  2.  "2.  2-4. 

**Isa.  10.  5.  **49.  6. 

"  14.  26. 

132 


THE  POWER  OF  GOD 

new  with  Amos  and  Isaiah?  The  prophets  themselves 
apparently  did  not  so  regard  them.  They  laid,  it  is  true, 
new  stress  on  the  moral  character  of  Yahweh  and  repre- 
sented his  purpose  as  more  distinctly  ethical  than  had 
heretofore  been  done;  but,  so  far  as  the  general  conception 
of  his  will  and  power  is  concerned,  they  added  nothing 
new.  The  idea  of  the  creatorship  of  Yahweh  was  al- 
ready, as  we  have  seen,  current  among  the  people;  and 
so  also  was  that  of  the  day  of  Yahweh,  an  impending 
event  of  world-wide  significance,  which  was  to  mark 
the  end  of  the  present  order.  "This  eschatology,  even  in 
its  crudest  form,  stood  for  the  truth  that  the  world  was 
one  and  was  governed  by  one  purpose."  ^^  No  doubt  this 
purpose  was  inadequately  conceived,  and  no  doubt  the 
current  conception  of  the  world  of  nations  was  a  very 
imperfect  one.  But  the  framework  of  the  idea  was  at 
least  there ;  and  to  Yahweh's  power  there  was  thought  to 
be  no  limit. 

In  a  few  passages  dating  from  the  preprophetic 
period*^  a  world  mission  seems  to  be  ascribed  to  Israel. 
In  Abraham  and  his  seed,  we  read,  all  the  nations  of  the 
earth  are  to  be  blessed.  This  has  been  supposed  to  mean 
that  the  blessings  of  the  true  religion  were  to  be  mediated 
to  the  world  through  Abraham  and  his  descendants.  But 
the  Hebrew  word  here  rendered  as  a  passive  should  prob- 
ably be  treated  as  a  reflexive.  The  meaning,  then,  is  that 
Israel  was  to  be  so  prosperous  that  the  nations  of  the 
earth  would  bless  themselves  by  her,  that  is,  would  ex- 
press the  wish  that  they  might  be  as  prosperous  as  she. 
An  exceptional  destiny  is  thus  ascribed  to  Israel  among 
the  nations  of  the  world,  but  nothing  is  said  about  a 

"  A.  C.  Welch,  The  Religion  of  Israel  under  the  Kingdom,  p.  71. 
**  Gen.  12.  3 ;  28.  14,  J ;  see  also  18.  18 ;  26.  4. 

133 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

world-mission.  This  idea  seems  to  have  been  later  in  de- 
veloping. And  so  also  the  world  and  Yahweh's  world- 
rule  were  no  doubt  conceived  far  more  distinctly  by  the 
eighth-century  prophets  than  in  earlier  times.  But  this 
does  not  mean  that  these  ideas  did  not  originate  until  the 
eighth  century.  They  are  assumed  in  the  prophetic  teach- 
ing as  already  known,  and  hence  must  have  had  their 
origin  in  the  preprophetic  period. 

Our  conclusion  thus  is  that  the  lofty  ideas  of  Yahweh's 
power  expressed  by  the  thought  of  his  creatorship  and 
universal  rule  arose  early  in  the  history  of  Israel.  Their 
full  import  did  not  come  to  be  appreciated  until  later.  But 
when  they  did  become  the  subject  of  special  reflection  and 
emphasis,  there  was  no  consciousness  of  any  break  with 
the  past.  Men  felt  that  they  were  simply  bringing  out 
into  clearness  of  expression  truths  that  had  been  part  of 
the  common  heritage  from  the  beginning.  To  describe 
Yahweh  as  at  first  a  war-god,  then  an  agricultural  land- 
god,  and  finally  the  world-god  is  to  misrepresent  the 
actual  course  of  development.  At  no  time  was  Yahweh's 
power  limited  to  the  battlefield  or  to  the  land  of  Canaan. 
From  the  outset  Yahweh  was  both  a  supcrnational  and  a 
supramundane  being,  and  it  was  only  a  specification  of 
these  transcendental  elements  in  his  nature  when  men  later 
came  to  believe  in  his  creatorship  and  universal  rule.  All 
that  was  needed  to  bring  these  beliefs  out  into  distinct 
consciousness  was  the  stimulus  of  an  expanding  expe- 
rience. Both  were  present  in  germ  in  the  Mosaic  concep- 
tion of  God. 

Along  with  the  new  stress  placed  on  the  creative  ac- 
tivity and  world-wide  power  of  Yahweh  from  the  time  of 
the  exile  on  there  went  naturally  also  an  increased  em- 

134 


THE  POWER  OF  GOD 

phasis  on  his  absolute  attributes:  his  eternity,  omnip- 
otence, omniscience,  and  omnipresence.  Nowhere  in  the 
Old  Testament  is  it  stated  or  even  hinted  that  Yahweh 
was  not  eternal.  The  Hebrews  had  no  theogony.  From 
everlasting  to  everlasting  Yahweh  was  God.  This  was 
the  belief  from  the  beginning,  but  it  received  special  em- 
phasis in  the  postexilic  period.  Eternity  was  thought  of 
as  endless  duration :  Yahweh's  years  would  have  no  end.*^ 
And  yet  there  was  a  feeling  that  time  cid  not  have  the 
same  meaning  for  him  as  for  us.  A  thousand  years  in 
his  sight,  we  are  told,  are  but  as  yesterday  when  it  is 
past.^*^  He  is  thus  in  reality  a  super-temporal  Being.  It 
is  in  the  same  concrete  way  also  that  his  omnipotence  is 
taught.  The  abstract  idea  is  nowhere  asserted,  but  the 
thought  is  expressed  in  a  great  variety  of  ways.  God 
but  speaks  and  the  ordered  universe  springs  into  being. 
"He  stretcheth  out  the  north  over  empty  space,  and  hang- 
eth  the  earth  upon  nothing."  ^*  The  heavens  are  but  the 
work  of  his  fingers,  and  all  the  marvels  of  the  stellar  uni- 
verse are  but  as  a  whisper  when  compared  with  the 
mighty  thunder  of  his  power. 

The  omniscience  and  omnipresence  of  God  receive  their 
clearest  and  fullest  expression  in  Psa.  139.  Here  we  read 
that  there  is  no  point  in  space  so  distant  that  God  is  not 
there,  there  is  no  darkness  so  dense  that  it  can  hide  any- 
one from  his  presence,  and  there  is  no  secret  of  the  heart 
so  profound  that  it  can  escape  his  all-seeing  eye. 

For  there  is  not  a  word  in  my  tongue 

But,  lo,  O  Jehovah,  thou  knowest  it  altogether. 


"Psa.  102.  27. 
•"  Psa.  90.  4. 
"Job  26.  7. 

I3S 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

Thou  hast  beset  me  behind  and  before, 

And  laid  thy  hand  upon  me. 

Such  knowledge  is  too  wonderful  for  me; 

It  is  high,  I  cannot  attain  unto  it. 

Whither  shall  I  go  from  thy  Spirit? 

Or  whither  shall  I  flee  from  thy  presence  ? 

If  I  ascend  up  into  heaven,  thou  art  there : 

If  I  make  my  bed  in  Sheol,  behold,  thou  art  there. 

If  I  take  the  wings  of  the  morning, 

And  dwell  in  the  uttermost  parts  of  the  sea; 

Even  there  shall  thy  hand  lead  me. 

And  thy  right  hand  shall  hold  me. 

If  I  say.  Surely  the  darkness  shall  overwhelm  me, 

And  the  light  about  me  shall  be  night ; 

Even  the  darkness  hideth  not  from  thee, 

But  the  night  shineth  as  the  day  (vs.  4-12). 


136 


CHAPTER  VI 
THE  HOLINESS  OF  GOD 

Holiness,  like  spirituality,  has  both  a  natural  or  meta- 
physical and  an  ethical  meaning.  With  us  the  ethical  pre- 
dominates. Indeed,  holiness  is  about  synonymous  with 
ethical  perfection.  Borden  P.  Bowne  thus  analyzes  the 
conception :  "Negatively,  holiness  implies  the  absence 
of  all  tendencies  to  evil  and  of  all  delight  in  evil.  Pos- 
itively, it  involves  delight  in  and  devotion  to  goodness. 
The  knowledge  of  evil  must  exist  in  the  divine  thought, 
but  perfect  holiness  implies  that  it  finds  no  echo  in  the 
divine  sensibility  and  no  realization  in  the  divine  will.  It 
further  implies,  positively,  that  in  God  the  ideal  of  moral 
perfection  is  realized;  and  this  ideal  involves  love  as  one 
of  its  chief  factors."  ^  But  this  was  not  the  original  con- 
ception of  holiness,  nor  is  it  the  conception  that  prevails 
throughout  most  of  the  Old  Testament. 

The  root-idea  of  kodesh,  the  Hebrew  word  for  "holi- 
ness," has  been  the  subject  of  much  discussion.^  But  no 
generally  accepted  conclusion  has  been  reached,  and  by 
many  the  problem  has  been  abandoned  as  hopeless.  The 
view  most  commonly  held  is  that  kodesh  meant  originally 
"separation"  or  "cutting  off."  And  this  may  very  well 
have  been  the  primary  meaning  of  the  term.  A  holy  thing 


'  Theism,  p.  286. 

*  For  a  statement  of  the  different  views  and  a  well-nigh  exhaust- 
ive discussion  of  the  subject,  see  Baudissin,  Studien  zur  Semit- 
ischen  Religionsgeschichte,  ii,  pp.  5-142. 

137 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

or  person  was  one  "separated"  in  one  way  or  another 
from  common  use  or  from  the  common  activities  of  Hfe. 
But  the  original  physical  sense  of  the  term  nowhere  oc- 
curs, and  so  is  necessarily  a  matter  of  surmise.  The 
word,  wherever  found,  is  used  in  a  religious  sense. 

Holiness  was  primarily  a  characteristic  of  Deity.  Its 
ascription  to  certain  things  and  persons  was  secondary. 
Things  and  persons  were  not  holy  in  and  of  themselves 
by  virtue  of  their  own  nature.  Whatever  holiness  they 
possessed  was  derived  from  their  special  relation  to  God 
or  the  gods.  In  its  essential  nature  holiness  was  a  unique 
quality  of  Deity.  Indeed,  it  was  not  in  the  strict  sense  of 
the  term  a  quality.  It  expressed  rather  the  idea  of  di- 
vinity itself.  The  "Holy  One"  was  a  synonym  for 
"God."  ^  Even  the  plural  Kedoshim,  like  the  plural  Elo- 
him,  was  used  in  this  sense.*  In  a  Phoenician  inscription 
we  read  of  the  "holy  gods,"  and  the  same  expression  oc- 
curs also  in  the  Old  Testament.^  "Holy"  as  here  used 
does  not  denote  a  special  attribute  of  the  gods,  but,  rather, 
the  differentiating  nature  of  Deity  itself.  The  gods  were 
"holy"  as  distinguished  from  other  beings. 

It  was  chiefly  by  way  of  contrast  with  men  that  God 
or  the  gods  were  spoken  of  as  holy.  But  the  contrast 
also  applied  to  the  lower  order  of  supernatural  or  spiritual 
beings.  Angels,  it  is  true,  were  regarded  as  "holy,"^  but 
they  were  also  called  Elohim  and  sons  of  Elohim?  They 
were  thought  of  as  sharing  in  the  divine  nature  and  so  as 
being  holy  as  God  is  holy.  Then,  too,  since  the  angels 
were  messengers  of  God,  dedicated  to  his  service,  they 

^  Isa.  40.  25. 

"  Prov.  30.  3. 

"^Dan.  4.  8,  9;  5.  11. 

*Job  5.  i;  Psa.  89.  5,  7;  Zech.  14.  5;  Dan.  8.  13. 

'  Psa.  8.  5 ;  97.  7 ;  Job  i.  6 ;  2.  1 ;  38.  7. 

138 


THE  HOLINESS  OF  GOD 

may  for  this  reason  also  have  been  designated  as  holy, 
just  as  sacred  things  and  persons  were.  But  supernatural 
or  spiritual  beings  below  the  rank  of  Elohim,  demons  and 
spirits  that  stood  in  no  direct  relation  to  the  Deity,  were 
not  regarded  as  holy.  To  them  the  idea  of  uncleanness 
was  attached.  And  here  it  is  that  the  distinction  between 
"holy"  and  "unclean"  had  its  origin.  Things  and  per- 
sons dedicated  to  a  deity  were  holy,  while  those  possessed 
by  a  demon  or  spirit  were  unclean. 

Before  this  distinction  arose  there  was  a  lower  state  of 
development  represented  by  the  institution  of  taboo. 
"Taboo"  is  a  term  borrowed  from  the  Polynesians,  but 
the  idea  expressed  by  it  is  one  common  among  savage  and 
half-savage  races.  It  rests  on  the  belief  that  certain 
things  and  persons  are  inhabited  by  a  mysterious  demonic 
or  divine  agency  and  consequently  are  dangerous,  so  that 
they  need  to  be  approached  warily  or  avoided  altogether. 
They  are  not  "holy"  nor  are  they  "unclean" ;  they  exhibit 
characteristics  of  both  classes.  A  sanctuary  is  taboo,  and 
so  is  a  dead  body.  The  rise  of  the  distinction  between 
these  two  classes  is  due  to  the  emergence  of  the  belief  in 
a  higher  order  of  spiritual  beings,  to  whom  a  certain 
stability  of  character  is  attributed  and  who  are  looked 
upon  as  friendly.  These  higher  beings,  or  deities,  as  they 
ma}^  be  termed,  are  holy.  They  enjoy  the  respect  of  men, 
and  true  worship  is  paid  to  them.  The  lower  spiritual 
beings,  on  the  other  hand,  come  now,  by  way  of  contrast, 
to  be  regarded  as  unclean.  They  and  the  objects  dedi- 
cated to  them  are  obnoxious  to  men  and  hateful  to  the 
gods.  They  must  be  avoided  if  contamination  and  injury 
are  to  be  escaped.  It  is  for  this  reason  that  no  unclean 
thing  could  be  made  holy.  Uncleanness  meant  possession 
by  a  demon  or  spirit,  and  this  by  its  very  nature  excluded 

139 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

that  divine  possession  which  formed  the  essence  of  holi- 
ness. 

But  while  holiness  was  a  unique  characteristic  of  Deity, 
it  nevertheless  in  its  earliest  form  bore  a  certain  re- 
semblance to  the  magical  and  defiling  influence  attributed 
to  the  lower  order  of  spirits  and  demons.  Uncleanness  and 
holiness  had  both  grown  out  of  the  idea  of  taboo,  and 
hence  it  was  only  natural  that  there  should  for  a  time  be 
a  certain  affinity  between  them.  The  most  noticeable 
point  of  resemblance  is  that  both  are  represented  as  con- 
tagious. According  to  Lev.  ii.  32ff.,  all  things  on  which 
the  carcasses  of  vermin  might  fall  were  rendered  unclean 
and  must  be  washed;  and  in  the  case  of  earthen  vessels 
the  uncleanness  was  thought  of  as  penetrating  so  deeply 
that  it  could  not  be  removed  by  mere  washing.  The 
vessels  must  consequently  be  broken,  for  any  food  or 
drink  taken  from  them  would  pollute  the  one  partaking. 
In  a  similar  way  it  was  held  that  the  flesh  of  the  sin-offer- 
ing rendered  everything  it  touched  holy.^  Any  garment 
sprinkled  with  its  blood  must  be  washed,  and  the  earthen 
vessel  in  which  it  was  boiled  must  be  broken.  Holiness 
and  uncleanness  were  thus  manifestly  viewed  as  a  kind  of 
physical  infection,  transmissible  from  one  thing  to  an- 
other or  from  one  person  to  another.  So  also,  in  the 
pagan  rites  described  in  Isa.  65.  5,  a  bystander  is  warned 
not  to  come  near  "or  else  I  will  sanctify  thee"  (emended 
reading),  the  idea  being  that  anyone  who  entered  the 
circle  of  the  initiated  would  be  infected  with  the  holiness 
of  the  group.  This  conception  of  holiness  clearly  harks 
back  to  the  primitive  idea  of  taboo.  The  only  advance  it 
marks  is  the  identification  of  the  spiritual  agency  sup- 
posed to  be  resident  in  certain  things  and  persons  with  a 

"Lev.  6.  27ff. 

140 


THE  HOLINESS  OF  GOD 

deity  instead  of  a  mere  spirit  or  demon.  But  this,  after 
all,  was  a  very  important  step  forward.  It  put  into  the 
hearts  of  men  respect  for  the  gods  instead  of  fear  of  an 
unknown  or  hostile  power.  And  in  this  change  we  have, 
as  Robertson  Smith  says,  "a  real  advance  beyond  savag- 
ery. There  is  a  great  moral  difference  between  precau- 
tions against  the  invasion  of  mysterious  hostile  powers 
and  precautions  founded  on  respect  for  the  prerogative  of 
a  friendly  god.  The  former  belong  to  magical  supersti- 
tion, .  .  .  [the  latter]  contain  within  them  the  germ- 
inant  principles  of  social  progress  and  moral  order."  ^ 

From  what  has  been  said  it  follows  that  holiness  as 
applied  to  things  and  places  did  not  mean  that  these  things 
and  places  had  been  withdrawn  from  private  use  and  had 
become  the  property  of  the  gods.  Later  some  such  idea 
seems  to  have  become  current.  But  originally  the  idea 
of  holiness  was  independent  of  the  property  idea.  It 
was,  to  begin  with,  older.  Certain  places  were  regarded 
as  sacred  before  the  institution  of  property  in  land  had 
arisen.  This  was  the  case  among  the  nomadic  Arabians. 
In  the  next  place,  the  holiness  of  a  thing  did  not  neces- 
sarily exclude  it  from  human  use,  nor  did  it  rule  out 
human  ownership.  Sacrifices  and  tithes  were  holy,  yet 
they  were  eaten  by  the  priests  and  worshipers.^*'  A  sanc- 
tuary together  with  its  entire  equipment  of  images  and 
other  sacred  objects  might  be  owned  by  an  individual.^^ 
Again,  holy  places  were  surrounded  with  restrictions 
which  manifestly  had  no  connection  with  their  protection 


*  The  Religion  of  the  Semites,  p.  154. 

*°  Exod.  29.  33f . ;  Lev.  21.  22 ;  22.  10 ;  Deut.  12.  26 ;  Num.  18.  25-32 ; 
Deut.  26.  13. 
"Judg.  17-18. 

141 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

as  property.  Certain  persons  were  denied  access  to  the 
sanctuary,  not  because  they  were  dangerous  but  because 
they  were  unclean  and  so  offensive  to  the  gods.  Others 
found  in  the  sanctuary  an  asylum.  In  the  Old  Testament 
this  right  of  asylum  was  limited  to  those  who  were 
guilty  of  involuntary  homicide/-  but  the  older  custom 
imposed  no  such  limitation.  All  fugitives  found  shelter 
and  protection  at  certain  Arabian  sanctuaries.  The  rea- 
son apparently  was  that  blood-shedding  or  violence  of 
any  kind  was  regarded  as  an  encroachment  upon  the 
divine  holiness,  and  so  could  not  be  tolerated  in  the  di- 
vine presence.  The  conclusion  to  which  we  thus  come  is 
that  things  and  places  were  not  holy  because  they  were  the 
exclusive  property  of  the  gods,  but  because  they  were  in 
some  way  electrically  charged,  as  it  were,  with  the  divine 
nature  or  substance  so  that  it  was  dangerous  for  men  to 
approach  them  except  in  certain  specified  ways.  "Com- 
mon things,"  as  Robertson  Smith  says,  "are  such  as 
men  have  license  to  use  freely  at  their  own  good  pleasure 
without  fear  of  supernatural  penalties,  while  holy  things 
may  be  used  only  in  prescribed  ways  and  under  definite 
restrictions,  on  pain  of  the  anger  of  the  gods."  ^^  To 
some  things  and  places  a  higher  degree  of  holiness,  a 
"most  holy"  state,  was  attributed.  This  was  because  they 
were  regarded  as  standing  in  an  especially  close  relation 
to  the  deity  and  so  were  surrounded  by  special  restric- 
tions.^^ 

It  has  been  argued  that  holiness,  even  as  applied  to  the 
Deity,  expresses  the  idea  of  relation.  "The  Holy  One 
of  Israel,"  for  instance,  is  interpreted  as  meaning  that 

"Exod.  21.  13-14. 

''  The  Religion  of  the  Semites,  p.  150. 
"  Exod.  26.  33f . ;  Lev.  6.  25  ;  24.  9 ;  Num.  4.  19 ;  18.  9. 

142 


THE  HOLINESS  OF  GOD 

God  is  holy  by  virtue  of  his  relation  to  Israel.  It  is  the 
relationship  that  makes  him  holy.  But  the  fact  that 
heathen  deities  generally  were  spoken  of  as  holy  excludes 
this  view.  "The  Holy  One  of  Israel"  means  simply  that 
he  who  is  holy  has  revealed  himself  in  Israel  or  is  God  of 
Israel.  "Of  Israel,"  as  Davidson  remarks,  forms  no  part 
of  the  idea  of  holy.  Holiness  is  a  common  and  essen- 
tial characteristic  of  Deity.  Indeed,  J.  P.  Peters  holds 
that  it  was  not  a  characteristic  of  Deity  in  general,  but 
the  peculiar  characteristic  of  each  individual  deity. 
"Holiness,"  he  says,  "was  that  which  especially  belonged 
to  a  god,  his  divinity,  which  not  only  differentiated  the 
deity  from  man,  but  differentiated  one  deity  from  an- 
other. It  is  this  peculiarity  of  each  deity,  his  individual- 
ity, in  which  his  holiness  consists."  ^^  In  support  of  this 
view  it  is  pointed  out  that  each  deity  had  his  own  special 
rules  of  holiness,  to  which  all  were  required  to  conform. 
But  this  fact  hardly  warrants  the  conclusion  that  the  holi- 
ness of  each  deity  differed  in  some  essential  way  from 
that  of  every  other.  When  it  is  said  that  "there  is  none 
holy  as  Jehovah,"  ^^  the  meaning  is  not  that  a  peculiar 
form  of  holiness  belonged  to  Yahweh.  but  that  he  alone 
was  worthy  to  be  regarded  as  truly  divine.  "Holiness" 
and  "divinity"  were  almost  synonymous  terms.  Amos, 
for  instance,  speaks  of  Yahweh  at  one  time  as  swearing 
"by  his  hohness"  ^'^  and  at  another  time  as  swearing  "by 
himself."  ^^  The  two  expressions  evidently  had  sub- 
stantially the  same  force.  Holiness  and  the  divine  per- 
sonality implied  each  other. 


"  The  Religion  of  the  Hebrews,  p.  295. 
"  I  Sam.  2.  2. 
"  Amos  4.  2. 
''6.  8. 

143 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

But  while  holiness  was  originally  almost  synonymous 
with  divinity,  it  had  a  distinct  connotation  of  its  own. 
It  directed  attention  to  the  unapproachableness  of  God, 
to  that  aspect  of  his  nature  which  awakened  in  men  the 
feeling  of  awe.  God  in  so  far  as  he  called  forth  rever- 
ence and  fear  was  holy.  And  this  meaning  of  the  term 
never  left  it.  Whatever  specific  conceptions  may  later 
have  been  associated  with  it,  it  never  lost  the  idea  that 
God  is  unapproachable  and  a  Being  to  be  feared.  In  its 
earlier  form  there  was  something  of  the  irrational  in  this 
conception  of  the  divine  nature.  Men  believed  that  they 
could  not  see  God  and  live.^^  They  also  felt  uncertain 
about  the  operation  of  the  divine  holiness.  There  was 
something  mysterious  and  incalculable  about  it.  A  great 
slaughter  was  visited  upon  the  men  of  Beth-Shemesh  or, 
if  we  accept  the  reading  of  the  Septuagint,  the  sons  of 
Jeconiah,  because  they  had  in  some  apparently  innocent 
way  infringed  upon  the  holiness  of  the  ark.^*^  And  when 
Uzzah  put  forth  his  hand  to  stay  the  ark  as  it  was  about 
to  fall,  he  was  struck  dead.^^  Yahweh  was  as  yet  a 
Being  who  was  not  fully  understood,  and  so  men  asked 
in  more  or  less  of  dismay,  "Who  is  able  to  stand  before 
Jehovah,  this  holy  God?"  ^^ 

Translated  into  psychological  terms  holiness  in  early 
thought  took  the  form  of  wrath  and  jealousy.  "Jeal- 
ousy," as  Cheyne  says,  "is  the  afifectional  manifestation 
of  the  divine  holiness."  ^^  And  the  same  might  be  said 
of  the  divine  wrath,  for  jealousy  is  only  a  specialized 


'Exod.  33.  20,  J;  Judg.  13.  22;  Isa.  6.  5. 
'  I  Sam.  6.  19. 
'2  Sam.  6.  6f. 
'  I  Sam.  6.  20. 

"  The  Prophecies  of  Isaiah,  p.  63. 

144 


THE  HOLINESS  OF  GOD 

form  of  the  divine  anger.  Whenever  the  divine  holi- 
ness was  offended,  whether  by  heathen  nations,  by  the  Is- 
raeHtes,  or  by  any  profane  person  or  thing,  the  inevitable 
psychological  reaction  was  wrath.  This  was  naturally 
suggested  by  human  analogy.  As  conceived  in  the  Old 
Testament  the  divine  wrath  was  akin  to  human  passion. 
It  was  not  always  thought  of  as  controlled  by  justice. 
Left  to  itself,  it  might  overleap  the  bounds  of  equity.^* 
Jealousy  was  awakened  in  the  divine  mind  whenever  the 
intimate  relation  between  Yahweh  and  Israel  was  en- 
croached upon.  Israel  might  of  her  own  free  accord  wor- 
ship other  gods,  or  her  enemies  might  lead  her  astray  and 
dishonor  her.  In  either  case  the  divine  holiness  was  vio- 
lated, and  the  divine  jealousy  aroused,  against  Israel  in 
the  one  case,^^  and  her  enemies  in  the  other.^^  These  re- 
actions of  the  divine  mind  in  the  form  of  wrath  and 
jealousy  were  conceived  of  as  taking  place  on  the  natural 
plane.  They  were  expressions  of  the  divine  nature  rather 
than  the  divine  will  or  character,  and  so  illustrate  the 
nonethical  view  of  holiness  current  in  primitive  times. 

The  primitive  conception  of  holiness  as  a  mysterious, 
indefinable,  fear-inspiring  characteristic  of  Deity  formed 
the  common  Semitic  background  of  Old  Testament  teach- 
ing. It  appears,  as  we  have  seen,  to  some  extent  in  the 
Old  Testament  itself;  but  it  has  interest  and  value  there 
only  as  revealing  the  crude  beginnings  from  which  the 
distinctive  Old  Testament  doctrine  developed.  "Israel," 
as  Cornill  says,  "resembled  in  spiritual  matters  the  fabu- 
lous King  Midas  who  turned  everything  he  touched  into 

"  Psa.  6.  I ;  Jer.  lo.  24. 
"Exod.  20.  5;  34.  14. 
"Zech.  I.  14;  8.  2;  Joel  2.  18. 

MS 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

gold."  This  is  especially  clear  in  the  case  of  the  idea  of 
holiness.  The  heathen  associations  of  the  term  were  not 
altogether  discarded,  but  they  gradually  gave  way  to 
higher  spiritual  and  ethical  conceptions.  Of  these  con- 
ceptions three  may  be  distinguished :  power,  purity,  and 
righteousness.    Each  calls  for  separate  discussion. 

The  power  or  majesty  of  God  was  not  far  removed 
from  the  fundamental  idea  expressed  by  holiness,  that  of 
unapproachableness.  What  rendered  God  unapproach- 
able, what  above  all  distinguished  him  from  men,  was  his 
greatness.  This  was  true  of  the  gods  generally  long  be- 
fore the  rise  of  monotheism,  and  was  true  of  Yahweh 
from  the  beginning.  It  became  natural,  therefore,  to 
associate  the  holiness  of  God  with  the  thought  of  his 
transcendent  greatness.  This  is  the  sense  in  which  the 
term  is  most  widely  used.  It  appears  clearly  in  the  tri- 
sagion  of  the  seraphim  :^'^  "Holy,  holy,  holy,  is  Jehovah 
of  hosts."    It  is  implied  in  many  utterances  in  the  Psalms : 

"Let  them  praise  thy  great  and  terrible  name: 
Holy  is  he;"  28 

"Holy  and  reverend  is  his  name ;"  ^^ 

"God  reigneth  over  the  nations : 
God  sitteth  upon  his  holy  throne."  ^^ 

It  is  the  idea  that  underlies  the  use  of  the  term  in  Deutero- 
Isaiah.  Holiness  is  there  associated  with  the  omnipotence 
of  Yahweh.  It  is  as  Lord  of  the  stellar  host  and  as  re- 
deemer of  Israel  that  he  is  the  Holy  One.^^     He  is  "the 


"  Isa.  6.  3. 

"99.3. 

"ill.  9. 

-47.8. 

*'  Isa.  40.  25 ; 

49-  7. 

146 


THE  HOLINESS  OF  GOD 

high  and  lofty  One  that  inhabiteth  eternity,  whose  name  is 
Holy."  ^^  But  it  is  especially  in  Ezekiel  that  this  concep- 
tion of  holiness  is  made  prominent.  Here  "great"  and 
"holy"  are  used  synonymously.^^  What  constitutes  a  pro- 
fanation of  the  holy  name  of  Yahweh  is  a  disbelief  in  his 
omnipotent  power.  It  was  in  this  way  that  the  Israelites 
by  their  exile  profaned  his  holy  name.  They  caused  the 
heathen  to  believe  that  their  exile  was  due  to  the  weak- 
ness of  Yahweh.^*  And  so  the  sanctification  of  his  name, 
the  exhibition  of  his  holiness,  consisted  in  the  assertion 
of  his  power  by  the  restoration  of  Israel.  Such  a  display 
of  might  on  his  part  would  sanctify  his  name  by  compel- 
ling the  heathen  to  recognize  his  true  majesty.^^ 

Closely  connected  with  this  conception  of  holiness  is 
the  idea  of  the  divine  glory.  The  two  are  brought  to- 
gether in  Isaiah  6.  3  :  "Holy,  holy,  holy,  is  Jehovah  of 
hosts;  the  whole  earth  is  full  of  his  glory."  The  glory  of 
Yahweh  was  the  outward  manifestation  of  his  holiness. 
It  is  represented  in  at  least  two  different  ways  in  the  Old 
Testament.  Isaiah  sees  it  in  the  power  and  might  mani- 
fest in  nature  and  history,^^  and  many  later  passages  in 
the  Old  Testament  echo  the  same  view.^"^  Ezekiel,  on  the 
other  hand,  represents  the  divine  glory  as  a  physical  phe- 
nomenon, a  bright  or  fiery  appearance,  indicative  of  the 
divine  presence,^^  and  the  same  view  appears  also  in  P.^^ 


''Isa.  57.  15. 
''36.  21-23. 
"  36.  20. 

^  20.  41 ;  38.  16,  23,  etc. 
^  2.  10,  21 ;  3.  8. 

"Deut.  5.  24;  Hab.  2.  14;  Isa.  66.  19;  Psa.  8.  2;  19.  i ;  57.  5,  11 ; 
63.  2. 

^'  I.  28 ;  9.  3 ;  10.  4 ;  II.  23 ;  43.  2ff. ;  44.  4. 
•^'■' Exod.  16.  10;  24.  16-18;  29.  43;  40.  34,  etc. 

147 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

There  is,  however,  this  difference.  In  Ezekiel  the  divine 
glory  appears  only  in  prophetic  vision,  while  in  P  it  mani- 
fests itself  to  ordinary  human  sight. 

The  idea  is  frequently  expressed  in  the  Old  Testament, 
especially  in  Ezekiel,  that  Yahweh's  motive  in  the  redemp- 
tion of  Israel  was  to  sanctify  his  name.  "I  wrought,"  he 
says,  "for  my  name's  sake."  ^^  "I  had  regard  for 
my  holy  name,  which  the  house  of  Israel  had  profaned 
among  the  nations  whither  they  went."  ^^  "I  do  not  tJiis 
for  your  sake,  O  house  of  Israel,  but  for  my  holy 
name."  ^^  The  prophet's  thought  here  seems  to  be  that 
Yahweh  was  actuated  by  the  motive  of  self-defense.  His 
honor  was  at  stake,  and  must  be  protected.  The  nations 
saw  in  the  exile  of  Israel  an  evidence  of  his  weakness,  and 
so  rejected  the  idea  of  his  universal  sovereignty.  Hence 
it  was  necessary  for  him  to  restore  Israel  and  make  such 
a  display  of  his  omnipotence  that  none  could  doubt  it.  In 
this  representation  of  the  divine  conduct  there  seems  to 
be  a  non-ethical  element.  Yahweh  seems  to  be  moved  to 
action  by  impulses  akin  to  those  natural  feelings  of  resent- 
ment and  offended  dignity  that  figure  so  prominently  in 
human  life.  In  these  feelings  there  is  often  very  little, 
if  any,  ethical  content.  They  arise  frequently  from  mere 
sensitiveness  of  nature.  And  yet  back  of  them,  no  matter 
how  foolish  and  irrational  they  may  be,  there  is  a  pro- 
found ethical  principle,  that  of  respect  for  oneself.  Self- 
respect  lies  at  the  very  basis  of  the  moral  life.  No  one 
can  lose  his  self-respect  without  losing  both  the  respect  of 
others  and  respect  for  others,  and  so  becoming  funda- 
mentally immoral.    This  holds  true  of  men  generally,  and 

*"  Ezek.  20.  9,  14,  22, 
"  Ezek.  36.  21. 
^'Ezek.  36.  22. 

148 


THE  HOLINESS  OF  GOD 

what  Ezekiel  does  is  to  apply  the  same  principle  to  God. 
God  must  as  God  be  true  to  his  own  nature,  to  his  own 
position  in  the  world,  and  so  must  demand  reverence  from 
men.  His  holiness,  his  transcendent  greatness,  requires 
it. 

It  is  perhaps  not  a  mere  coincidence  that  the  prophet 
who  thus  stresses  Yahweh's  regard  for  his  own  name  was 
also  the  prophet  of  individualism.  The  two  ideas  are 
nowhere  directly  connected,  but  the  same  fundamental 
thought  underlies  them  both.  According  to  individual- 
ism, every  individual  man  has  certain  rights  which  so- 
ciety and  God  himself  must  respect.  No  one  may  justly 
be  damned  for  the  sake  of  anyone  else,  not  even  for  the 
glory  of  God.  And  so  it  is  also,  on  the  other  hand,  with 
God.  God  by  virtue  of  the  fact  that  he  is  God  has  certain 
rights  which  men  and  nations  must  respect.  He  must  at 
times  act  out  of  regard  for  his  own  holy  name.  Duty 
requires  it.  It  is  this  profound  ethical  truth  that  lies  at 
the  basis  of  Ezekiel's  conception  of  the  divine  holiness,  as 
majesty  or  irresistible  power. 

The  conception  of  the  divine  holiness  as  purity  appears 
to  some  extent  in  Ezekiel,*^  but  is  especially  prominent  in 
the  Levitical  legislation.  Cleanness,  as  we  have  seen, 
was  a  condition  of  holiness.  Only  clean  objects  could 
become  holy.  Hence  cleanness  and  holiness  came  to  be 
used  almost  synonymously.  Both  formed  an  antithesis  to 
uncleanness.  Holiness  in  this  sense  as  applied  to  the 
Deity  expressed  a  sensitiveness  on  his  part  to  everything 
impure.  He  reacted  against  it  as  we  do  against  anything 
repellent  to  our  taste.  Originally  objects  and  customs 
were  rendered  impure  because  of  their  connection  with 

''43.  7-9. 

149 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

heathen  deities,  with  ancestor-worship,  or  with  other 
forms  of  superstition.^^  Such  objects  and  customs 
awakened  the  jealousy  of  Yahweh  and  hence  were  cast 
out  from  his  presence  as  unclean.  Later,  uncleanness 
came  to  be  attributed  to  a  wider  range  of  objects  and  acts. 
All  sin  came  to  be  viewed  as  uncleanness,^^  and  unsesthetic 
things  generally  came  to  be  regarded  in  the  same  light. 
Priests,  for  instance,  were  prohibited  from  wearing  any- 
thing woolen  on  the  ground  that  it  caused  sweat.^^  There 
was  something  in  the  divine  nature  that  reacted  unfavor- 
ably upon  everything  impure  and  improper.  It  was  holi- 
ness in  this  sense  that  formed  the  ruling  principle  in  the 
rites  and  ceremonies  of  the  Old  Testament.  When  Yah- 
weh said,  "Be  ye  holy,  for  I  am  holy,"  ^'  what  he  meant 
was  that  the  people  should  hold  themselves  aloof  from 
everything  ceremonially  unclean  as  he  himself  did.  Holi- 
ness, thus  understood,  did  not  exclude  the  moral,  but  it 
stood  more  closely  related  to  the  aesthetic  nature. 

It  is  in  the  last  mentioned  fact  that  the  ethical  justi- 
fication of  Old  Testament  ceremonialism  is  to  be  found. 
"It  is  the  very  nature  of  religion,"  as  A.  V.  G.  Allen  has 
said,  "that  it  tends  to  cultivate  good  taste  as  well  as  a 
right  heart  and  right  living."  ^^  Men  demand  that  in  our 
relation  to  them  we  should  not  only  observe  the  moral  law, 
but  also  those  rules  of  polite  intercourse  which  reveal  per- 
sonal respect  and  consideration.  And  so,  the  ceremonial- 
ist  says,  it  should  be  in  our  relation  to  God.  Etiquette 
has  its  place  in  religion.  It  is  an  indication  not  only  of 
good  taste  but  of  spiritual  refinement.     It  shows  a  sensi- 

"Lev.  19.  31. 

"■  Lev.  18.  26-28. 

'"  Ezek.  44.  18. 

"Lev.  II.  44;  19.  2;  20.  26. 

*^ Freedom  in  the  Church,  p.  195. 

ISO 


THE  HOLINESS  OF  GOD 

tiveness  of  feeling  toward  the  divine  such  as  could  not  be 
expressed  by  mere  obedience  to  the  moral  law.  Moral 
obedience  is  fundamental  and  absolutely  essential,  but 
ceremonialism  has  its  place  in  the  further  culture  of  the 
soul.  If  it  obscures,  as  it  sometimes  does,  the  moral  re- 
quirements of  religion,  it  is  of  course  to  be  condemned. 
But  in  and  of  itself  it  simply  aims  by  a  reverent  and 
thoughtful  approach  to  God  to  give  expression  to  the 
inviolable  purity  of  his  nature.  It  aims  to  refine  the  sense 
of  the  divine  presence.  Ceremonial  holiness,  conse- 
quently, as  applied  both  to  God  and  man  had  a  rational 
place  in  Old  Testament  religion. 

The  ethical  conception  of  holiness  is  especially  promi- 
nent in  Isaiah.  That  this  formed  no  part  of  the  original 
meaning  of  the  term  is  evident  from  the  fact  that  the  de- 
graded beings,  prostitutes  and  sodomites,  who  sacrificed 
their  purity  at  the  sanctuaries,  were  called  "holy"  ones,  or 
"saints."*^  Such  a  use  of  the  term  kadesh  would  have 
been  impossible  if  a  moral  quality  had  been  expressed 
by  it.  All  that  the  word  originally  meant  was  that  the 
thing  or  person  to  which  it  was  applied  was  in  some  way 
related  to  the  sanctuary.  The  word  was  itself  morally 
neutral.  But  as  the  worship  of  Yahweh  became  more  and 
more  firmly  established  in  Israel,  the  idea  of  holiness 
naturally  took  its  color  from  the  prevailing  conception  of 
his  character.  And  as  he  came  to  be  thought  of  more 
and  more  distinctly  as  a  moral  Being,  holiness  natu- 
rally came  to  be  regarded  as  having  an  ethical  con- 
tent. It  was  with  Isaiah  that  this  ethical  content  of  the 
term  was  first  emphasized.  We  see  it  in  his  inaugural 
vision.  The  holiness  there  attributed  to  Yahweh  awak- 
^'  Deut.  23.  17. 

151 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

ened  within  the  prophet  a  consciousness,  not  only  of 
creaturely  infirmity,  but  also  of  moral  unworthiness,  an 
un worthiness  that  attached  both  to  himself  and  the  na- 
tion-^**  As  compared  with  the  Holy  One  he  and  the 
people  among  whom  he  dwelt  were  morally  unclean. 
"Jehovah  of  hosts,"  he  says  in  another  connection,  "is 
exalted  in  justice,  and  God  the  Holy  One  is  sanctified  in 
righteousness."  ^^  This  particular  verse,  it  is  true,  is  as- 
signed by  many  critics  to  a  later  hand,  but  the  idea  it  ex- 
presses is  one  that  underlies  most  of  the  Isaianic  pro- 
phecies. It  is  Isaiah's  general  teaching  that  Israel's  sin 
is  rebellion  against  God  and  that  the  divine  holiness  has 
manifested  itself  and  will  continue  to  manifest  itself  in 
righteous  judgments  on  his  people.  The  essential  ele- 
ment in  holiness  is  thus  righteousness.  And  this  must 
have  been  the  case  generally  with  those  prophets  who 
stressed  the  moral  character  of  Yahweh.  Nor  are  we  to 
suppose  that  the  ethical  conception  of  the  divine  holiness 
was  lacking  with  such  prophets  as  Ezekiel  and  Deutero- 
Isaiah,  who  laid  special  emphasis  on  the  power  and  great- 
ness of  Yahweh.  Holiness  was,  as  we  have  seen,  a  unique 
characteristic  of  Deity.  It  denoted  no  particular  attri- 
bute. But  when  some  attribute  such  as  power  or  purity 
or  righteousness  was  especially  emphasized,  the  idea  of 
holiness  came  naturally  to  be  closely  associated  with  it. 
In  this  way  every  distinctive  attribute  of  the  Deity  came 
to  be  regarded  as  an  expression  of  the  divine  holiness, 
or  as  virtually  identical  with  it. 

In  the  development  of  the  Old  Testament  idea  of  the 
divine  holiness  there  was  a  tendency  toward  a  more  dis- 
tinctly ethical  and  spiritual  conception.    But  the  develop- 

'•"  Isa.  6.  5. 
•'  5-  i6. 

152 


THE  HOLINESS  OF  GOD 

ment  was  not  a  steady  upward  movement.  The  half-mag- 
ical and  ceremonial  elements  in  the  preprophetic  concep- 
tion of  holiness^^  gave  way  in  Isaiah  to  the  ethical,  and 
from  his  time  on  the  moral  factor  remained  a  constituent 
element  in  the  idea  of  holiness.  But  in  Ezekiel  and  the 
Priestly  Code,  as  we  have  seen,  the  less  distinctly  ethical 
conceptions  of  holiness  as  majesty  and  ceremonial  purity 
came  into  the  foreground,  and  down  through  the  post- 
exilic  period  these  conceptions  seem  to  have  become  in- 
creasingly prominent.  Holiness,  while  not  excluding  the 
ethical,  came  to  be  thought  of  more  and  more  from  the 
ceremonial  point  of  view.  It  was  probably  for  this  reason 
that  Jesus  used  the  term  so  seldom.  In  only  two  instances 
does  he  apply  it  to  God.  In  John  17.  11  he  addresses 
God  as  "Holy  Father,"  and  in  the  Lord's  Prayer  he 
teaches  us  to  pray  that  the  divine  name  may  be  hallowed. 
In  both  cases,  it  should  be  noted,  the  idea  of  holiness  is 
associated  with  that  of  Father,  and  derives  its  meaning 
from  that  association.  It  is  the  fatherly  or  ethical  nature 
of  God,  not  his  mere  transcendence  or  mystic  purity,  that 
is  thought  of  as  the  object  of  reverence  and  trust.  The 
principle  of  ceremonialism  Jesus  rejected  outright, ^^  and 
with  it  went  the  ceremonial  conception  of  holiness.  If, 
then,  the  idea  of  holiness  was  to  be  retained  in  Christian 
thought,  it  could  be  only  by  completely  moralizing  it  and 
making  it  synonymous  with  ethical  perfection.  This 
process  of  moralization  began  even  before  the  time  of 
Isaiah,  but  it  did  not  attain  its  completion  until  Chris- 
tianity had  so  thoroughly  spiritualized  the  conception  of 
God  that  men  came  to  see  that  he  could  henceforth  be 
worshiped  only  in  spirit  and  in  truth. 

"  I  Sam.  6.  20 ;  2  Sam.  6.  7 ;  Exod.  22.  31,  E. 
"  Mark  7.  14-23. 

153 


CHAPTER  VII 

THE  RIGHTEOUSNESS  OF  GOD 

A  CENTURY  or  SO  ago  it  was  a  common  belief  that  the 
distinctive  features  of  Israel's  religion  were  to  be  found 
in  its  ceremonial  regulations.  The  poet  Goethe,  for  in- 
stance, in  an  article  published  in  1773,  contended  that  the 
ethical  Decalogue  in  Exod.  20  could  not  have  been  the 
basis  of  the  Mosaic  covenant,  because  the  principles  it 
laid  down  were  universally  recognized  as  valid  and  con- 
tained nothing  distinctively  Israelitic.  The  ceremonial 
Decalogue,  on  the  other  hand,  supposed  to  be  found  in 
Exod.  34.  10-26  and  now  commonly  known  as  "the 
J  Decalogue,"  he  argued,  would  have  furnished  a  fitting 
basis  for  such  an  exclusive  covenant  as  was  that  of  the 
Old  Testament.  It  was,  he  consequently  concluded,  the 
ten  commandments  in  Exod.  34,  not  those  in  Exod.  20, 
that  were  written  "on  the  tables  of  stone"  at  Sinai. ^  This 
theory  in  a  modified  form  has  found  wide  acceptance  in 
recent  times.  It  is  now  a  common  view  that  there  is  a 
second  Decalogue  in  Exod.  34  and  that  this  Decalogue  is 
considerably  older  than  that  in  Exod.  20.  But  the  basis 
for  this  view  is  quite  different  from  that  on  which  Goethe 
rested  his  theory.  Goethe  held  that  the  ethical  element 
in  religion  was  common  to  mankind  and  that  it  was  the 
ceremonial  that  was  distinctive  of  Israel.  To-day  schol- 
ars are  agreed  that  the  chief  point  of  similarity  between 

'  See  the  author's  article  on  "The  So-called  J  Decalogue"  in  the 
Journal  of  Biblical  Literature,  1909,  pp.  82ff. 

154 


THE  RIGHTEOUSNESS  OF  GOD 

the  Old  Testament  and  heathen  religions  is  to  be  found  in 
its  rites  and  ceremonies,  and  that  the  new  and  significant 
element  in  the  Old  Testament  is  the  ethical.  But  this  ele- 
ment, it  is  contended  by  many  critics,  was  a  late  achieve- 
ment in  Israel's  history.  Hence  we  must  hold  that  the 
ritual  Decalogue  in  Exod.  34  was  older  than  the  ethical 
Decalogue  in  Exod.  20.  It  was,  however,  the  latter,  and 
not  the  former,  that  expressed  the  true  genius  and  distinc- 
tive character  of  Old  Testament  religion. 

Applying  this  conclusion  to  the  Old  Testament  con- 
ception of  God,  we  see  that  the  characteristic  element  in 
this  conception  was  righteousness.  In  the  Semitic  poly- 
theisms there  was  usually  some  one  god  such  as  the  Baby- 
lonian Shamash  whose  special  function  it  was  to  main- 
tain law  and  right;  in  the  Zoroastrian  dualism  Ahura 
Mazda  represented  perfect  goodness;  and  in  the  philo- 
sophic monotheism  of  the  Greeks  there  was  a  strong  eth- 
ical element.  But  none  of  these  systems  was,  as  Kuenen 
puts  it,  "ethical  to  the  very  core."  ^  They  were  not  abso- 
lutely dominated  by  the  idea  of  righteousness,  as  was 
Hebrew  and  Christian  thought.  It  was  the  unique  char- 
acteristic of  Yahweh  that  he  was  identified  with  the  moral 
principle  of  the  universe  and  that  this  principle  was  looked 
upon  as  absolutely  sovereign. 

But  such  a  conception  was  naturally  not  the  work  of  a 
day.  It  was  the  outcome  of  a  long  development.  To 
trace  the  stages  in  this  development  is  one  of  the  most 
interesting  and  difficult  problems  connected  with  Old 
Testament  religion.  Wellhausen,  as  we  have  already  ob- 
served,^ has  asked  why,  for  instance,  Chemosh  of  Moab 
did  not  become  the  God  of  righteousness  rather  than 

"  The  Prophets  and  Prophecy  in  Israel,  p.  590. 
'  Page  79. 

ISS 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

Yahweh  of  Israel,  and  has  replied  that  a  satisfactory- 
answer  cannot  be  given.  A  partial  answer,  as  we  have 
suggested,  might  be  found  in  Israel's  passionate  devotion 
to  Yahweh;  but  in  the  last  analysis  Wellhausen's  state- 
ment is  no  doubt  true.  There  is  an  element  of  mystery 
lying  back  of  the  spiritual  development  of  any  people, 
which  the  human  mind  will  never  be  able  to  penetrate. 
That  mystery,  according  to  theistic  and  Christian  thought, 
belongs  to  the  inscrutable  will  of  God.  To  his  will  must 
be  referred  the  ultimate  explanation  of  everything.  And 
when  it  comes  to  movements  of  different  degrees  of  spir- 
itual value,  Christian  thought  sees  in  those  of  a  higher 
character  the  presence  in  a  unique  sense  of  the  Divine 
Spirit.  Such  a  marvelous  spiritual  movement  as  that  in 
Israel  it,  consequently,  refers  to  the  self-revelation  of 
God  himself.  But  this  still  leaves  open  the  question  as 
to  how  and  when  this  revelation  was  made.  Was  the 
righteousness  of  God  first  revealed  to  Amos  or  can  it  be 
traced  back  to  Moses?  Under  what  form  did  it  first 
manifest  itself,  and  what  was  the  attitude  of  the  pre- 
prophetic  Israelites  toward  it?  These  are  all  questions 
on  which  there  is  wide  difference  of  opinion. 

It  is  generally  agreed  that  with  Amos  we  have  a  com- 
plete moralization  of  the  idea  of  God.  To  seek  Yah- 
weh and  to  seek  the  good  are  with  him  synonymous  ex- 
pressions.^ Yahweh  is  the  moral  ruler  of  the  universe, 
and  what  he  requires  of  men  is  simply  obedience  to  the 
moral  law.  But  was  this  teaching  of  Amos  "something 
new  and  startling  in  Israel"  ?  Was  it  "a  bolt  out  of  the 
open  blue,"  or  did  it  have  its  roots  in  the  past?  Can  it 
be  traced  back  into  the  preprophetic  period,  or  even  to 

*S.  6,  14. 

IS6 


THE  RIGHTEOUSNESS  OF  GOD 

the  time  of  Moses?    How,  in  a  word,  is  the  relation  of 
Amos  to  the  early  religion  of  Israel  to  be  construed? 

In  answering  this  question  it  will  be  well  to  begin  with 
Moses.  If  the  Decalogue  came  from  Moses,  the  question 
would  be  virtually  settled.  But  this  is  unfortunately  one 
of  the  main  points  of  dispute  in  connection  with  the  ques- 
tion. One  of  the  chief  objections  to  the  Mosaic  origin  of 
the  Decalogue  is  the  ethical  conception  of  religion  that 
underlies  it.  This  objection  as  an  argument  is,  of  course, 
a  begging  of  the  question,  since  the  major  point  at  issue  is 
just  the  question  as  to  whether  there  was  a  distinctly  eth- 
ical element  in  the  Mosaic  conception  of  Yahweh.  If  there 
was,  the  Decalogue  might  have  come  from  Moses;  if  not, 
it  must  have  come  from  a  later  date.  In  the  present  state 
of  thought  it  is  consequently  evident  that  the  Decalogue 
cannot  be  used  either  to  support  or  oppose  the  view  that 
the  ethical  factor  in  Old  Testament  religion  had  its  origin 
in  the  teaching  of  Moses.  Though  it  may  justly  be  con- 
tended that  in  default  of  positive  disproof  there  is  an 
a  priori  probability  that  the  unanimous  biblical  tradition 
ascribing  the  Decalogue  to  Moses  had  a  trustworthy  basis. 

If  Yahweh,  as  conceived  by  Moses,  "was  no  more  eth- 
ical than  any  other  god,"  it  devolves  upon  us  to  show  at 
what  subsequent  period  in  Israel's  history  the  unique  eth- 
ical element  in  the  later  conception  of  Yahweh  might 
more  naturally  have  been  introduced.  But  this  cannot  be 
done.  Between  the  time  of  Moses  and  that  of  Amos 
there  was  no  event  and  no  personality  significant  enough 
to  be  regarded  as  the  starting  point  of  so  far-reaching  a 
change  in  the  conception  of  the  character  of  Yahweh. 
This  is  conceded  by  Budde,^  who,  while  denying  that  the 
Mosaic  Yahweh  was  in  any  distinctive  sense  an  ethical 

*  The  Religion  of  Israel  to  the  Exile,  pp.  21-38. 

157 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

deity,  still  contends  that  the  germ  of  the  subsequent  eth- 
ical development  must  be  found  in  the  work  of  Moses. 
"All  attempts,"  he  says,  "to  find  the  germ  of  the  ethical 
development  of  the  Yahweh  religion  in  the  material  con- 
tent of  the  conception  of  God  as  represented  by  Moses, 
have  completely  failed."  The  ethical  germ  does  not  lie  in 
anything  that  Moses  taught  or  revealed.  It  is  to  be  found 
in  the  fact  that  Yahweh,  who  had  previously  been  the 
God  of  the  Kenites,  became  under  Moses'  leadership  the 
God  of  Israel.  He  chose  Israel  as  his  people,  and  they 
accepted  him  as  their  God.  There  was  thus  established 
a  voluntary  relation  between  a  people  and  its  god,  some- 
thing new  in  the  history  of  religion,  and  out  of  this  volun- 
tary relation  grew  the  new  ethical  element  in  Israel's 
religion.  "Israel's  religion,"  as  Budde  says,  "became 
ethical  because  it  was  a  religion  of  choice  and  not  nature, 
because  it  rested  on  a  voluntary  decision  which  estab- 
lished an  ethical  relation  between  the  people  and  its  God 
for  all  time." 

In  this  ingenious  theory  there  may  be  some  truth.  But 
several  criticisms  naturally  suggest  themselves.  In  the 
first  place,  it  is  by  no  means  certain  that  Yahweh  was  the 
God  of  the  Kenites  before  he  became  the  God  of  Israel. 
It  is  quite  probable  that  he  was  known  to  some  at  least  of 
the  Israelitic  tribes,  if  not  all  of  them,  before  the  time  of 
Moses.  And  in  that  case  there  was  nothing  in  the  new 
loyalty  to  him  evoked  by  the  deliverance  from  Egypt  to 
suggest  the  distinction  between  a  religion  of  "nature"  and 
one  of  "choice."  In  the  next  place,  it  is  doubtful  if  the 
distinction  between  a  "natural"  and  a  voluntary"  relation 
to  the  Deity  ever  played  such  a  role  in  the  history  of  reli- 
gion as  is  implied  in  Budde's  theory.  Ancient  peoples 
generally  looked  upon  their  relation  to  the  Deity  as  a  per- 

158 


THE  RIGHTEOUSNESS  OF  GOD 

sonal  one,  and  it  is  open  to  serious  question  if  any  impor- 
tant people  ever  regarded  the  god  of  their  fathers  as  "by- 
nature  bound  so  closely  to  the  descendants  that  he  was 
compelled  to  take  their  part  whatever  their  behavior  to 
him."  ®  When  Babylon  fell,  the  priests  of  Marduk  did 
not  hesitate  to  attribute  its  fall  to  the  anger  of  their  god, 
just  as  the  fall  of  Jerusalem  was  ascribed  by  the  prophets 
to  the  wrath  of  Yahweh.  The  same  free  relation  of  the 
Deity  to  his  people  was  assumed  in  both  cases.  Then, 
again,  it  may  be  noted  that  while  Yahweh' s  choice  of 
Israel  is  frequently  referred  to  in  the  Old  Testament,  it 
is  nowhere  opposed  to  a  "natural"  relationship.  Indeed, 
the  two  ideas,  that  of  a  "natural"  paternal  relation  to 
Israel  and  that  of  a  choice  of  Israel,  at  times  go  hand  in 
hand.'^  And  so  far  as  the  people  themselves  were  con- 
cerned, there  was  nothing  in  the  conception  of  their  elec- 
tion by  Yahweh  that  implied  that  their  relation  to  him  was 
primarily  ethical.  The  prophets  found  it  quite  as  neces- 
sary to  moralize  the  idea  of  Israel's  election  as  they  did 
the  idea  of  a  "natural"  relation  to  Yahweh.  Between 
these  two  conceptions  no  distinction  of  any  significance 
was  made  in  the  Old  Testament. 

What  was  ethically  significant  in  the  work  of  Moses 
was  not  the  establishment  of  a  new  voluntary  relation  be- 
tween a  people  and  its  God,  but  the  new  and  profound 
sense  of  gratitude  and  loyalty  called  forth  by  the  mar- 
velous deliverance  of  the  Israelites  from  Egypt.  That 
deliverance  they  attributed  to  Yahweh,  whether  they  had 
known  him  before  or  not,  and  to  him  they  poured  out 
their  soul  in  passionate  devotion.  This  devotion  was  in 
itself  a  profoundly  ethical  act.     It  involved  such  a  sur- 

*  H.  P.  Smith,  The  Religion  of  Israel,  p.  60. 
^  Hos.  II.  1-4. 

ISO 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

render  of  the  human  to  the  divine  will  and  such  an  out- 
flow of  joyful  gratitude  to  God  that  the  prophets  cen- 
turies later  looked  back  upon  it  as  the  ideal  expression 
of  the  nation's  religious  life.  Israel  was  then  "holiness 
unto  Jehovah,  the  first-fruits  of  his  increase."  ^  He 
found  her  "like  grapes  in  the  wilderness ;  ...  as  the 
first-ripe  in  the  fig-tree."  ^  The  ardor  she  then  mani- 
fested was  the  kindness  of  her  youth  and  the  love  of  her 
espousals.^"  And  when  Hosea  describes  the  ideal  Israel 
of  the  future  he  says  that  "she  shall  make  answer  there, 
as  in  the  days  of  her  youth,  and  as  in  the  day  when  she 
came  up  out  of  the  land  of  Egypt."  ^^  In  that  early  day 
no  mummery  of  sacrifice  vitiated  her  worship.^^  Her 
devotion  was  a  pure  service  of  the  heart. 

Whether  this  new-born  and  intense  loyalty  to  Yahweh 
was  accompanied  by  any  definite  instruction  concerning 
his  moral  character  and  moral  commands,  is  a  point  on 
which  we  are  left  in  uncertainty.  It  is  quite  possible,  and 
even  probable,  that  the  Decalogue  emanated  from  Moses. 
But  whether  it  did  or  not,  and  whether  there  was  any 
other  moral  instruction  that  came  from  him  or  not,  there 
can  hardly  be  a  doubt  that  the  initial  passionate  devotion 
of  Israel  to  Yahweh  contained  an  ideal  element  that  made 
it  the  germ  of  the  subsequent  ethical  development.  The 
Yahweh,  to  whom  the  Hebrews  surrendered  themselves, 
may  not  to  an  outward  observer  have  seemed  very  dif- 
ferent from  Chemosh  of  Moab,  but  the  glowing  loyalty 
that  he  evoked  carried  with  it  of  necessity  a  tendency  to 
idealize  his  character.    There  are  in  our  subjective  moral 

^Jer.  2.  3. 

*  Hos.  9.  10. 

"Jer.  2.  2. 

"2.15. 

"  Amos  5.  25 ;  Jer.  7.  22. 

160 


THE  RIGHTEOUSNESS  OF  GOD 

equipment  two  positive  factors,  the  good  will  and  a  cer- 
tain ideal  of  life.  Both  come  to  us  as  obligations,  and 
both  in  the  case  of  the  Hebrews  must  have  been  so  stim- 
ulated by  the  sense  of  loyalty  and  gratitude  to  Yahweh 
as  to  lead  to  an  essentially  new  view  of  his  character  and 
of  the  service  he  required  of  men.  This  higher  ideal 
element  may  not  at  first  have  manifested  itself  with  per- 
fect distinctness.  But  the  impulse  toward  it  was  cer- 
tainly there.  It  was  implicit  in  the  intense  devotion  and 
sustained  enthusiasm  of  the  people.  The  God  under 
whose  banner  they  had  enlisted  was  no  mere  nature-god, 
no  mere  dispenser  of  the  good  things  of  life,  but  a  stern 
God  of  conscience,  a  God  to  whom  law  and  right  were 
dear.^^  As  much  at  least  of  the  ethical  as  this  must  be 
attributed  to  the  Mosaic  conception  of  Yahweh. 

Between  the  time  of  Moses  and  that  of  the  literary 
prophets  we  have  both  decline  and  progress.  The  period 
corresponds  closely  to  that  in  Christian  history  between 
the  apostolic  age  and  the  Reformation.  The  Reformation 
was  a  reaffirmation  of  primitive  Christianity,  and  yet  it 
marked  also  an  important  step  forward.  The  interven- 
ing centuries,  dark  and  backward  as  they  had  been,  had 
still  not  been  altogether  fruitless.  They  had  prepared  the 
way  for  such  an  advance  as  that  of  the  Reformation. 
And  so  it  was  with  the  literary  prophets.  They  reaf- 
firmed what  they  believed  to  be  the  teaching  of  Moses, 
and  yet  their  teaching  was  not  a  mere  echo  of  that  of 
the  nation's  founder.  The  intervening  centuries  in  spite 
of  all  their  lapses  had  witnessed  a  distinct  religious  de- 
velopment, and  this  development  it  was  that  alone  made 
possible  the  work  of  the  eighth-century  prophets.     The 

"Exod.  i8. 

i6i 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

outstanding  characteristic  of  this  period  of  development 
was  the  assimilation  of  a  vast  amount  of  heathenism  and 
the  gradual  recognition  of  the  essential  antithesis  between 
this  heathen  importation  and  the  faith  inherited  from 
Moses.  In  the  course  of  such  a  process  it  was  inevitable 
that  diverse  views  concerning  the  character  of  Yahweh 
should  receive  expression.  In  the  main  he  is  represented 
as  a  God  of  righteousness.  The  statement  of  a  later 
writer  that  "judgment  belongs  to  God,"  ^^  holds  true  of 
this  earlier  period.  Two  striking  scenes  illustrate  it. 
One  is  Nathan's  arraignment  of  David  for  his  sin  against 
Uriah  the  Hittite,^^  and  the  other  is  Elijah's  denuncia- 
tion of  Ahab  for  the  judicial  murder  of  Naboth.^®  But 
the  idea  in  less  striking  ways  finds  expression  through- 
out the  period  as  a  whole, ^'^  The  Book  of  the  Covenant^* 
is  in  large  part  a  legal  embodiment  of  it. 

Nevertheless  along  with  this  conception  of  Yahweh 
as  a  righteous  Deity  there  are  other  representations  that 
seem  to  conflict  with  it.  Yahweh  falls  at  times  into  an 
apparently  unintelligible  or  capricious  anger,^®  he  mani- 
fests a  jealous  attitude  toward  human  ambition,^*^  he 
allows  himself  to  be  moved  by  such  a  material  gift  as  the 
smell  of  the  sweet  fragrance  of  a  sacrifice,^^  he  incites  to 
evil  action,^^  and  he  shows  favoritism  to  the  Israelites, 

"Deut  I.  17. 

'^2  Sam.  12. 

"  I  Kings  21. 

"  Judg.  I.  7;  I  Sam.  2.  25;  24.  12;  25.  39;  2  Sam.  16.  10-12;  17.  14; 
I  Kings  2.  32;  2  Kings  9,  24-26. 

"  Exod.  20.  22  to  23.  19. 

^'  I  Sam.  6.  19 ;  2  Sam.  6.  6f. 

~Gen.  3.  22;  II.  6f,  J. 

"  Gen.  8.  21,  J. 

"2  Sam.  24.  1;  I  Kings  12.  15;  22.  23;  i  Sam.  26.  19;  Judg. 
9.  22-24. 

162 


THE  RIGHTEOUSNESS  OF  GOD 

even  helping  them  against  other  people  when  they  them- 
selves are  in  the  wrong.^^  In  such  instances  as  these  it  is 
no  doubt  true  that  the  biblical  writers  did  not  mean  to 
impute  moral  imperfection  to  Yahweh.  What  they  re- 
lated of  him  seemed  to  them  proper  enough.  It  was  their 
own  uneducated  moral  sense,  their  own  imperfect  concep- 
tion of  the  divine  sovereignty,  and  the  nationalistic  limita- 
tions of  their  own  views  that  led  them  to  ascribe  to  Yah- 
weh acts  that  seem  to  us  unethical.  But  the  very  fact  that 
such  acts  were  ascribed  to  him  is  of  course  evidence  that 
the  current  conception  of  his  character  had  not  as  yet  been 
so  completely  molded  on  the  principle  of  righteousness 
that  the  latter  was  regarded  as  forming  the  one  touch- 
stone of  divine  action.  Another  forward  step  was  needed 
before  the  idea  of  God  was  fully  moralized. 

This  forward  step  was  taken  by  Amos  and  the  other 
eighth-century  prophets.  It  was  taken,  however,  by  them 
almost  unconsciously.  They  were  unaware  of  any  break 
with  the  past.  They  regarded  themselves  as  simply  call- 
ing the  people  back  to  "the  old  paths,  where  is  the  good 
way."  ^*  And  yet  as  we  study  their  utterances  we  dis- 
cover in  them  an  ethical  thoroughness  and  loftiness  that 
we  do  not  find  in  the  documents  that  have  come  down  to 
us  from  an  earlier  period.  Their  idealism  moves  on  a 
higher  plane.  They  feel  themselves  standing  face  to 
face  with  a  marvelous  theophany.  God  is  about  to  reveal 
himself  as  the  righteous  Judge  of  the  world.  He  had 
been  such  before,  but  his  dealings  with  men  had  not  al- 
ways been  so  clear  that  they  could  discern  the  principle  by 
which  he  was  guided.    In  the  great  day  about  to  dawn  this 

"Gen.  12.  10-20,  J;  20.  1-18,  E. 
"Jer.  6.  16. 

163 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

unclearness  is  to  disappear,  and  God  is  to  stand  before 
men  as  the  one  living  embodiment  of  righteousness  and 
judgment.  All  iniquity  is  to  be  overthrown,  and  a  new 
kingdom  founded  on  right  and  truth  is  to  be  established. 
In  these  ideas  there  was  nothing  wholly  new;  there  was 
nothing  to  which  the  devout  of  an  earlier  day  would  not 
have  said  "Yea"  and  "Amen."  ^^  Yet  they  reveal  a  clear- 
ness of  vision,  a  firmness  of  conviction,  and  an  elevation 
of  moral  sentiment  such  as  had  not  appeared  before. 

The  prophetic  stress  on  the  righteousness  of  God  mani- 
fested itself  in  several  ways.  For  one  thing,  it  took  the 
form  of  a  denunciation  of  the  traditional  worship  of  the 
Israelites.  This  worship  was  in  two  regards  unworthy  of 
a  righteous  God.  First,  some  of  the  objects  and  rites 
associated  with  it  were  of  a  debasing  and  even  immoral 
character.  This  was  true  of  the  images  used  and  of  the 
prostitution  practiced  at  the  high  places.^^  In  the  next 
place,  the  rites  and  ceremonies  that  were  in  and  of  them- 
selves unobjectionable,  were  observed  in  such  a  formal 
way  that  they  had  no  spiritual  value.  Instead  of  express- 
ing the  spirit  of  true  piety  they  were  regarded  as  a  substi- 
tute for  it.  Instead  of  leading  to  a  life  of  righteousness 
they  were  regarded  as  dispensing  with  the  need  of  such 
a  life.  So  deep  seated  was  this  heresy  that  the  early 
prophets  were  forced  again  and  again  to  condemn  it. 
"I  hate,"  says  Yahweh,  "I  despise  your  feasts,  and  I  will 
take  no  delight  in  your  solemn  assemblies."  ^^     "I  desire 

"  This  is  a  significant  fact.  "In  striking  contrast  is  the  progress 
of  thought  in  Greece,  where  the  awakening  of  the  ethical  conscious- 
ness caused  a  rupture  between  the  culture  of  the  philosophers  and 
the  popular  religion,  and  led  to  a  final  decay  of  the  political  and 
social  life."    See  Dr.  K.  Kohler's  Jcivish  Theology,  p.  39. 

""Amos  2.  7;  Hos.  4.  13-14;  8.  4-6;  13.  2. 

"  Amos  5.  21. 

164 


THE  RIGHTEOUSNESS  OF  GOD 

goodness,  and  not  sacrifice;  and  the  knowledge  of  God, 
more  than  burnt-offerings."  ^^  "What  unto  me  is  the 
multitude  of  your  sacrifices?  saith  Jehovah:  I  have  had 
enough  of  the  burnt-offerings  of  rams,  and  the  fat  of 
fed-beasts  .  .  .  Bring  no  more  vain  oblations;  incense 
is  an  abomination  unto  me.  .  .  .  Your  new  moons 
and  your  appointed  feasts  my  soul  hateth;  they  are  a 
trouble  unto  me;  I  am  weary  of  bearing  them."  ^^  "To 
what  purpose  cometh  there  to  me  frankincense  from 
Sheba,  and  the  sweet  cane  from  a  far  country?  Your 
burnt-offerings  are  not  acceptable,  nor  your  sacrifices 
pleasing  unto  me."  ^°  Thousands  of  rams  and  ten  thou- 
sands of  rivers  of  oil,  even  the  sacrifice  of  one's  first-born, 
had  no  value  in  his  sight.^^  Nor  did  he  give  any  heed  to 
the  outstretched  hands  of  prayer  when  unaccompanied  by 
the  proper  spirit. ^^  It  was  to  him  a  sufficient  ground  for 
the  people's  condemnation  that  they,  as  he  says,  "draw 
nigh  unto  me,  and  with  their  mouth  and  with  their  lips 
do  honor  me,  but  have  removed  their  heart  far  from 
me."  ^^  In  and  of  themselves  rites  and  ceremonies  were 
worthless,  and  the  formal  traditional  worship  a  sham  and 
a  delusion. 

Along  with  this  condemnation  of  ceremonialism  went, 
in  the  next  place,  an  equally  emphatic  insistence  on  right- 
eousness as  the  one  essential  element  in  the  true  worship 
of  Yahweh.  Righteousness  was  conceived  by  the  proph- 
ets as  both  objective  and  subjective,  both  social  and  indi- 
vidual.    Some  laid  more  stress  on  one  aspect,  and  some 

='Hos.  6.  6. 
"°  Isa.  I.  11-14. 
^Jer.  6.  20. 
"  Mic.  6.  6-7. 
''Isa.  I.  15. 
^Isa.  29.  13. 

i6S 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

on  another,  but  all  agreed  in  their  conception  of  the  es- 
sential nature  of  righteousness.  It  meant  social  justice, 
it  meant  personal  purity,  it  meant  a  clean  heart  as  well 
as  right  conduct.  Amos  emphasizes  social  justice,  and 
this  is  also  prominent  in  Isaiah.  "Let  justice,"  says 
Amos,  "roll  down  as  waters,  and  righteousness  as  a 
mighty  stream."  ^*  "Seek  justice,"  says  Isaiah,  "relieve 
the  oppressed,  judge  the  fatherless,  plead  for  the 
widow."  ^^  Hosea  condemns  moral  evil  in  general,  but 
dwells  with  special  emphasis  on  personal  purity.^®  Jere- 
miah stresses  the  subjective  side  of  righteousness. 
"Break  up,"  he  says,  "your  fallow  ground,  and  sow  not 
among  thorns.  Circumcise  yourselves  to  Jehovah,  and 
take  away  the  foreskins  of  your  heart."  ^^  "This  is  the 
covenant  that  I  will  make  with  the  house  of  Israel  after 
those  days,  saith  Jehovah:  I  will  put  my  law  in  their 
inward  parts,  and  in  their  heart  will  I  write  it."  ^^  This 
idea  is  also  expressed  by  Ezekiel.  "A  new  heart  also," 
he  represents  Yahweh  as  saying,  "will  I  give  you,  and  a 
new  spirit  will  I  put  within  you;  and  I  will  take  away  the 
stony  heart  out  of  your  flesh,  and  I  will  give  you  a  heart 
of  flesh."  ^^  The  most  comprehensive  statement  of  the 
ethical  teaching  of  the  prophets  is  the  well-known  saying 
in  Micah :  "What  doth  Jehovah  require  of  thee,  but  to  do 
justly,  and  to  love  kindness,  and  to  walk  humbly  with  thy 
God?"^o 

The  most  striking  exhibition,  however,  of  the  ethical 


^^5. 

24. 

»5j 

17- 

-4. 

13; 

7. 

4. 

-4. 

3-4- 

"31 

•  33 

"'  Ezek. 

36. 

26; 

compare 

II. 

19. 

*"6. 

8. 

THE  RIGHTEOUSNESS  OF  GOD 

idealism  of  the  prophets  is  to  be  found,  not  in  their  de- 
nunciation of  the  traditional  religious  formalism,  nor  in 
their  insistence  on  righteousness  as  the  one  worthful  thing 
in  the  sight  of  God,  but  in  their  teaching  concerning  the 
day  of  Yahweh.  In  that  day  soon  to  dawn  the  evils  of 
the  present  order  are  to  cease.  The  eternal  and  ideal  is 
to  emerge  in  the  order  of  time.  Yahweh  is  to  establish 
his  own  kingdom  among  men.  It  is  primarily  in  Israel  that 
the  paroiisia  is  to  take  place.  In  a  certain  sense  Yahweh 
had  ruled  over  the  Israelites  in  the  past.  They  had  been 
his  people  and  he  their  God.  He  had  given  them  laws, 
and  sent  them  prophets.  He  had  punished  them  time  and 
again  and  in  the  most  varied  ways  for  their  sins.  He  had 
sent  them  famine  and  pestilence  and  earthquake  and  war, 
but  all  to  no  avail.  After  each  visitation  he  was  forced 
to  say,  *'Yet  have  ye  not  returned  unto  me."  ^^  And 
so  the  prophet  Isaiah  in  describing  a  series  of  chastise- 
ments was  compelled  to  add  after  each  of  them  the  con- 
viction that  "for  all  this  his  anger  is  not  turned  away, 
but  his  hand  is  stretched  out  still."  ^^  A  more  com- 
plete and  striking  manifestation  of  his  wrath  against  all 
wrongdoing  was  consequently  necessary.  And  this  was 
to  come  in  the  not  distant  future.  A  doom  surpassing 
anything  known  in  the  past  was  to  befall  Israel.  War, 
captivity,  fire,  earthquake,  eclipse,  famine,  pestilence — all 
these  were  used  as  symbols  of  the  impending  catastrophe, 
but  none  expressed  its  full  terrors.  Yahweh  himself  was 
to  arise  and  shake  mightily  the  earth.^^  Before  his  pres- 
ence nothing  hostile  would  be  able  to  stand.  The  Israel 
of  history  with  its  idolatry,  its  injustice,  its  immorality, 

"Amos  4.  6,  8,  9,  10,  II. 
"9- 12,  17,  21;  10.  4;  5.  25. 
*'Isa.  2.  21. 

167 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

its  uncleanness  of  heart,  would  be  swept  away  by  the 
breath  of  his  anger.  Only  righteousness  and  loyalty  of 
soul  would  have  a  place  in  the  new  Israel  that  was  to 
supersede  the  Israel  of  the  past. 

But  Yahweh's  day  of  doom  was  not  confined  to  Israel. 
It  was  to  involve  all  peoples.  One  nation  might  for  a 
while  be  used  to  punish  another  for  its  sins.  Assyria,  it 
is  said,  was  the  rod  of  Yahweh's  anger  and  the  staff  of 
his  indignation.^^  But  this  was  only  a  temporary  phase 
of  the  approaching  doom.  Eventually  all  nations  were  to 
come  under  the  divine  wrath.  To  some  extent  the  indig- 
nation of  God  against  the  sins  of  the  heathen  had  mani- 
fested itself  in  the  past.  It  was,  for  instance,  the  wick- 
edness of  the  pre-Israelitic  inhabitants  of  Canaan  that  led 
to  their  expulsion  from  the  land.^^  But  thus  far  the 
righteous  rule  of  Yahweh  in  dealing  with  the  heathen 
had  manifested  itself  only  to  a  very  limited  degree.  In 
the  great  assize  of  the  near  future  it  would  be  different. 
The  nations  will  then  be  tested  by  the  plummet  line  of 
righteousness.  Their  pride  will  be  rebuked,  their  hostil- 
ity to  the  divine  plan  defeated,  and  Yahweh  alone  will  be 
exalted  in  that  day.  Confusing  as  the  present  course  of 
events  may  be,  iniquity  will  soon  be  so  decisively  and 
finally  punished  that  none  will  be  able  to  doubt  the  abso- 
lute reign  of  righteousness  in  the  world. 

The  righteousness  of  God,  however,  did  not  in  the  Old 
Testament  mean  simply  judgment.  It  did  not  mean  the 
enforcement  of  abstract  justice.  The  Hebrews  made  no 
such  sharp  distinction  between  the  divine  righteousness 
and  the  divine  mercy  as  we  sometimes  find  in  Christian 
theology.    Righteousness  with  them  was  coextensive  with 

"  Isa.  10.  5. 

"Deut.  9.  5;  Gen.  15.  16. 

168 


THE  RIGHTEOUSNESS  OF  GOD 

the  moral  nature.  It  embraced  kindness,  benevolence,  hu- 
manity. One  could  not  be  righteous  without  being  kind 
and  loving.  This  aspect  of  the  divine  righteousness  is 
brought  out  prominently  in  Deutero-Isaiah.  Here  right- 
eousness is  about  synonymous  with  salvation.  Yahweh 
is  spoken  of  as  "a  just  God  and  a  Saviour,"  *®  "My 
righteousness,"  says  Yahweh,  "is  near,  my  salvation  is 
gone  forth."  ^"^  "My  salvation  shall  be  forever,  and  my 
righteousness  shall  not  be  abolished."  *^  This  use  of  the 
word  "righteousness"  is  commonly  explained  by  saying 
that  Yahweh  stood  in  a  covenant  relation  to  Israel, 
and  so  was  morally  bound  to  be  true  to  that  relation 
and  to  save  Israel,  But  in  Isa.  42.  6,  21  the  divine 
righteousness  is  represented  as  initiating  the  covenant- 
bond,  and  in  Isa.  51,  5  it  has  to  do  with  the  salvation  not 
of  Israel  but  of  all  mankind.  It  thus  manifestly  had  a 
broader  meaning  than  that  of  mere  fidelity  to  a  covenant 
relation  with  Israel.  It  carried  with  it  the  idea  of  grace 
and  mercy  as  one  of  its  constituent  elements.  The  right- 
eousness of  God  itself  impelled  him  to  save  men.  Just  as 
a  father  is  morally  obligated  to  do  everything  he  can  for 
his  children,  so  is  it  with  God  in  his  relation  to  men.^^ 
The  very  fact  that  he  is  righteous  carries  with  it  the  idea 
of  his  benevolence,  so  that  the  triumph  of  righteous- 
ness means  also  the  triumph  of  his  grace  and  the  redemp- 
tion of  all  those  that  love  his  appearing. 

There  is  another  aspect  of  the  divine  righteousness  that 
has  created  some  difficulty  for  the  modern  mind.    Right- 

*^Isa.  45.  21. 

"Isa.  51.  5- 

*^  Isa.  51.  6 ;  compare  i  John  i.  9;  Heb.  6.  10. 

''  Isa.  63.  16. 

169 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

eousness  as  we  apply  it  to  a  judge  or  ruler  implies  on  his 
part  an  equal  or  impartial  attitude  toward  all  that  come 
under  his  jurisdiction.  But  if  God  is  righteous  in  this 
sense,  how  are  we  to  account  for  his  special  relation  to 
Israel,  a  relation  assumed  throughout  practically  the 
whole  of  the  Old  Testament?  In  the  abstract  such  a 
relation  can  be  justified  only  on  ethical  grounds,  only  on 
the  assumption  that  Israel  by  its  superior  moral  attain- 
ments had  merited  its  election  at  the  hands  of  Yahweh. 
But  this  assumption  is  manifestly  one  that  lies  beyond 
the  possibility  of  proof.  And  so  the  tendency  at  present 
is  to  look  upon  the  problem  as  insoluble  and  to  refer  it  to 
that  realm  of  mystery  by  which  human  life  as  a  whole  is 
surrounded.  In  a  world  of  heredity  and  social  solidarity 
abstract  righteousness,  in  the  sense  of  perfect  equality  in 
the  treatment  of  all,  is  impossible  of  realization.  This  is 
true  both  of  individuals  and  of  nations.  Why  one  should 
be  apparently  favored  and  the  other  not,  we  do  not  know. 
But  in  any  case  there  is  no  greater  mystery  in  the  divine 
choice  of  Israel  than  in  the  unique  history  of  Greece  and 
Rome. 

The  Old  Testament  writers,  in  so  far  as  they  dealt 
with  this  problem,  contented  themselves  with  various  re- 
flections of  an  ethico-religious  character.  They  assigned, 
for  instance,  the  election  of  Israel  and  the  blessings  that 
came;  with  it  to  the  love  of  Yahweh  without  any  attempt 
to  give  a  reason  for  that  love.^*^  His  love  was  with  them 
an  ultimate  fact.  At  other  times  they  attributed  the 
favored  position  of  Israel  to  the  promises  made  by  Yah- 
weh to  the  patriarchs.  The  people  were  not  deserving  of 
the  blessings  they  received,  but  Yahweh  had  promised  the 
patriarchs   that   their   descendants   would   receive   these 

'"Hos.  II.  I. 

170 


THE  RIGHTEOUSNESS  OF  GOD 

blessings,  and  hence  they  were  granted  them.  ^^  We  have 
here  a  suggestion  of  the  doctrine  of  justification  by  faith. 
The  patriarchs  represented  to  the  Old  Testament  writers 
ideal  Israel.  What  they  were,  Israel  in  its  best  moments 
hoped  to  be.  And  what  the  Israelites  thus  hoped  to  be,  or 
in  other  words,  their  faith,  was  thought  of  as  the  ground 
of  Yahweh's  gracious  attitude  toward  them.  A  somewhat 
higher  standpoint  still  is  represented  by  Amos  and  Deu- 
tero-Isaiah.  According  to  Amos,  Israel's  election  did 
not  mean  a  monopoly  of  the  divine  favor,  but  simply 
moral  opportunity.  Revelations  of  truth  had  been  made 
to  them  such  as  had  been  made  to  no  other  people,  but 
these  revelations  gave  them  no  selfish  advantage.  They 
simply  increased  their  responsibility  and  made  the  punish- 
ment of  their  sins  all  the  more  certain.  According  to 
Deutero-Isaiah,  the  special  revelations  made  to  Israel  had 
an  ulterior  purpose.  They  were  not  granted  for  Israel's 
own  sake,  but  for  the  sake  of  the  whole  world.  Israel 
was  to  be  a  light  to  lighten  the  Gentiles.^^  It  was  in  this 
that  their  election  consisted.  It  was  an  election  to  a  mis- 
sion, an  election  to  service.  Why  Israel  rather  than  an- 
other nation  was  chosen  for  this  mission  is  not  stated. 
That  was  a  question  the  prophets  left  to  the  mystery  of 
the  divine  sovereignty.  For  them  it  was  sufficient  that  the 
divine  election  of  Israel,  accepted  by  the  people  generally 
as  a  fact,  should  be  moralized  and  spiritualized,  and  so 
be  brought  into  essential  harmony  with  the  righteous 
character  of  Yahweh. 

The  moralization  of  the  idea  of  God  was  Israel's  su- 
preme achievement.  Its  importance  in  human  history 
can  hardly  be  exaggerated.     It  saved  religion  from  the 

"  Deut.  8.  i8 ;  9.  5. 
"Isa.  42.  1-4,  6;  49.  6. 

171 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

groveling  superstitions  associated  with  signs  and  omens, 
superstitions  that  degraded  both  intellect  and  conscience. 
It  likewise  saved  religion  from  the  irrationality  and  emp- 
tiness of  mere  ceremonialism,  a  system  of  rites  that  stood 
in  no  vital  relation  either  to  the  conscience  of  the  indi- 
vidual or  the  social  good.  In  a  positive  way  it  linked  up 
religion  with  those  elemental  virtues  that  lie  at  the  basis 
of  every  healthy  social  organism,  and  so  made  religion  the 
mightiest  agency  in  the  world  for  both  the  preservation 
and  development  of  society.^^  It  furthermore  tended  to 
make  conscience  in  a  special  sense  the  seat  of  religion,  and 
so  transformed  religion  from  an  external  obedience  to  an 
inward  fellowship  between  the  soul  and  God,  a  fellowship 
that  eventually  rose  above  the  world  of  time  and  sense 
and  thus  became  the  chief  good  of  life. 

^^  See  the  author's  Old  Testament  Problem,  pp.  39ff.,  and   The 
Beacon  Lights  of  Prophecy,  pp.  82ff. 


172 


CHAPTER  VIII 
THE  LOVE  OF  GOD 

F.  W.  H.  Myers,  the  English  essayist  and  investigator 
of  psychic  phenomena,  was  once  asked  what  one  thing 
he  would  like  to  know  above  all  others,  what  one  ques- 
tion, if  he  were  restricted  to  one,  he  would  ask  the  Sphinx. 
After  a  moment's  silence  he  replied  that  he  thought  it 
would  be  this :  Is  the  universe  friendly  ?^  It  is  this  ques- 
tion that  lies  at  the  basis  of  religion,  and  it  is  this  ques- 
tion more  than  any  other  to  which  the  Scriptures  taken  as 
a  whole  give  a  positive  answer.  God,  we  are  told,  is  love.^ 
But  this  exalted  conception  came  only  after  a  long  period 
of  development;  and  our  task  in  the  present  chapter  is  to 
trace  this  development  so  far  as  it  is  reflected  in  the  liter- 
ature of  the  Old  Testament. 

Various  terms  are  used  in  the  Old  Testament  to  express 
the  idea  of  the  divine  love,  or  good  will.  There  is,  first, 
the  Hebrew  equivalent  of  the  English  word  "love" 
(ahcb),  which  is  used  both  of  human  and  divine  love  and 
of  affection  both  pure  and  impure.  Then  there  is  the  He- 
brew word  usually  rendered  "loving-kindness,"  or  "good- 
ness" (chesed).  It  is  significant  that  the  corresponding 
adjective  (chasid)  meant  "pious,"  or  "godly."  This  sug- 
gests that  kindness  was  regarded  as  the  distinguishing 
characteristic  of  piety.  Closely  associated  with  "loving- 
kindness"  was  the  word  "faithfulness"  (emeth).    These 

'  The  Problem  of  Religion,  by  E.  C.  Wilm,  p.  114. 
^  I  John  4.  8,  16. 

173 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

words  occur  together  frequently.^  They  imply  that  God 
has  the  loyalty  and  good  will  of  a  friend.  "Compassion" 
is  another  term  used  to  express  the  divine  love.  In  the 
Hebrew  this  term  is  derived  from  the  word  for  "womb" 
(rechem),  and  so  probably  expressed  the  idea  of  mother- 
feeling.^  Frequently  coupled  with  "compassionate"  is 
the  word  "gracious,"^  a  word  used  only  to  express  an 
attribute  of  God.  These  terms  all  brought  out  the  tender, 
affectional  side  of  the  divine  nature,  the  side  that  mani- 
fests itself  in  the  more  intimate  relations  of  personal  life. 
The  Hebrew  word  for  "righteousness"  (tsedek),  by  way 
of  distinction,  suggested,  rather,  a  judge  or  ruler.  It 
probably  originally  was  connected  with  the  idea  of  vic- 
tory, victory  in  battle  or  in  a  court  of  law.®  He  was 
"righteous"  who  was  adjudged  such  by  appeal  to  arms  or 
the  decision  of  a  judge.  Only  later  did  the  term  take  on 
a  broader  and  more  distinctly  ethical  content.  And  even 
then  its  earHer  judicial  associations  did  not  altogether  dis- 
appear. 

It  is  commonly  agreed  that  Hosea  sustained  the  same 
relation  to  the  development  of  the  doctrine  of  the  divine 
love  that  Amos  did  to  the  development  of  the  idea  of  the 
divine  righteousness.  And  in  both  cases  we  have  the  same 
difference  of  opinion  as  to  what  this  relation  was.  Some 
look  upon  Hosea's  teaching  concerning  the  divine  love  as 
"absolutely  new."  This  is  Cornill's  view.  "The  entire 
faith  and  theology,"  he  says,  "of  later  Israel  grew  out  of 
Hosea."  It  was  with  him  that  "those  thoughts  in  which 
humanity  has  been  educated  and  which  have  consoled  it 


'  Gen.  24.  27,  J ;  2  Sam.  2.  6. 

*2  Sam.  24.  14. 

'  Exod.  34.  6,  J ;  Psa.  103.  8.. 

'  See  B.  Stade,  Biblische  Theologie  des  Alten  Testaments,  p. 

174 


THE  LOVE  OF  GOD 

for  nearly  three  thousand  years"  had  their  origin,  and 
hence  "we  must  reckon  him  among  the  greatest  rehgious 
geniuses  which  the  world  has  ever  produced."  '^  The 
latter  statement  relative  to  the  greatness  of  Hosea,  while 
somewhat  extreme,  may  be  allowed  to  pass.  He  was 
without  doubt  a  very  remarkable  man,  and  his  teaching 
marks  an  epoch  in  the  development  of  the  doctrine  of  the 
divine  love.  But  that  his  teaching  on  this  point  was  "ab- 
solutely new"  is  a  statement  that  will  not  bear  the  test 
of  sober  criticism. 

Religion  as  distinguished  from  magic  implies  faith  in  A'A.-vi 
the  good  will  of  the  superintending  spirit  or  deity;  and  ''^ 
this  was  especially  true  of  the  worship  of  Yahweh  from 
the  very  beginning.  What  gave  rise  to  the  national  reli- 
gion of  Israel  was  a  mighty  act  of  grace  on  the  part  of 
Yahweh.  He  delivered  the  Israelites  in  a  marvelous  way 
from  threatened  destruction,  and  thus  revealed  once  for 
all  his  gracious  disposition  toward  them.  This  disposi- 
tion in  early  times  manifested  itself  chiefly  in  the  form 
of  help  against  their  enemies.  It  was  through  the  aid  of 
Yahweh  that  the  Israelites  triumphed  over  the  Canaan- 
ites,  the  Midianites,  and  Philistines.^  Indeed,  all  their 
victories  were  due  to  Yahweh's  favor.®  But  it  was  not 
simply  in  time  of  war  that  Yahweh  revealed  his  good  will 
toward  them.  It  manifested  itself  in  the  most  varied 
relations  of  life  both  toward  the  nation  and  toward  indi- 
viduals.^*^ At  times  he  did  things  that  seemed  to  belie  his 
gracious  character  ;^^   but  these  experiences  while  they 

'  The  Prophets  of  Israel,  p.  50. 
*Judg.  5;  7.  14;  2  Sam.  5.  24. 
°  Deut.  9.  1-3. 

"Gen.  24.  27;  Num.   14.   19-20,  J;  Deut.  33.  3;  2  Sam.  2.  6; 
24.  14. 

"  I  Sam.  6.  20 ;  2  Sam.  6.  7. 

175 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

perplexed  the  early  Israelites  did  not  destroy  confidence 
in  his  essential  goodness.  In  spite  of  apparently  incon- 
sistent acts  on  his  part  they  continued  to  trust  him  as  one 
kindly  disposed  toward  them. 

Several  different  figures  are  employed  in  the  Old  Testa- 
ment to  express  the  idea  of  the  divine  love.  The  most 
common  one  and  the  one  that  may  be  regarded  as  most 
fundamental  is  that  of  a  covenant  between  Yahweh  and 
Israel.  The  Hebrew  word  for  "covenant"  (berith)  prob- 
ably originally  meant  a  "fetter"  or  "bond,"  and  so  came 
to  be  used  in  the  sense  of  a  compact  between  two  parties/^ 
or  a  decree  imposed  by  one  party  upon  another/^  or  a 
pledge  made  by  one  to  another.^'*  Of  these  different  uses 
it  is  not  certain  which  was  the  earliest.  Where  a  berith 
was  established  between  equals  it  would  naturally  take 
the  form  of  a  mutual  agreement,  involving  mutual  obliga- 
tions and  mutual  rights.  Where,  on  the  other  hand,  a 
superior  imposed  his  will  on  an  inferior  or  pledged  him 
his  aid,  the  berith  thus  established  would  be  in  the  nature 
of  a  law  or  a  promise.  In  such  cases  a  certain  obligation 
either  of  obedience  or  grateful  loyalty  might  rest  upon 
the  weaker  party,  but  this  was  often  overlooked,  so  that 
berith  was  frequently  used  as  a  synonym  for  command- 
ment or  promise.  A  promise  might,  of  course,  be  made 
conditional  upon  obedience  to  a  certain  law,  and  in  that 
case,  if  the  arrangement  were  accepted  by  the  weaker 
party,  all  three  senses  of  berith  would  be  combined  in  a 
single  relationship.  A  "covenant"  would  be  a  compact, 
a  law,  and  a  pledge. 

'"Gen.  31.  44ff.,  JE;  i  Sam.  18.  3. 
"2  Sam.  5.  3. 
"Jer.  34.8ff. 

176 


THE  LOVE  OF  GOD 

It  is  in  this  threefold  sense  that  the  covenant  between 
Yahweh  and  Israel  was  understood  from  the  time  of 
Deuteronomy  down.  Whether  before  that  time  the  idea 
of  a  compact  or  mutual  agreement  between  Yahweh  and 
Israel  was  current,  is  a  question  on  which  opinion  differs. 
The  eighth-century  prophets  make  no  reference  to  such 
a  compact.  Hosea  speaks  twice  of  a  "covenant,"  which 
Israel  has  transgressed,^^  but  in  both  cases  the  word  need 
not  mean  anything  more  than  a  "commandment"  of  Yah- 
weh. It  does  not,  however,  follow  from  the  silence  of 
the  eighth-century  prophets  that  the  covenant-idea  was 
unknown  to  them;  for  quite  a  number  of  the  later  proph- 
ets, such  as  Zephaniah,  Nahum,  Habakkuk,  Jonah,  Joel, 
and  Zachariah  i-8,  all  of  them  post-Deuteronomic  except 
Zephaniah,  fail  to  make  use  of  it.  It  may  simply  be  that 
the  prophetic  mind  ran  in  different  channels.  So  far  as 
the  idea  itself  is  concerned,  the  presuppositions  of  it  are 
manifestly  to  be  found  in  the  teaching  of  the  eighth- 
century  prophets.  They  looked  upon  Israel  as  standing  in 
a  unique  relation  to  Yahweh,  a  relation  whose  continu- 
ance was  morally  conditioned.  That  they  do  not  seem  to 
have  spoken  of  this  relation  as  a  covenant,  may  have  been 
more  or  less  accidental.  Berith  in  their  day  and  before 
their  time  was  used  in  the  sense  of  a  divine  command- 
ment.^^ It  was  also  used  of  the  divine  promise  made  to 
Abraham.  In  Gen.  15.  18  (J)  we  read  that  "Jehovah 
made  a  covenant  with  Abram,  saying.  Unto  thy  seed  have 
I  given  this  land,  from  the  river  of  Egypt  unto  the  great 
river,  the  river  Euphrates."  This  promise,  or  covenant, 
seems  to  have  been  unconditional,  but  that  it  implied  cer- 
tain obligations  on  the  part  of  Israel  was,  of  course,  taken 

^'6.  7;  8.  I. 

"Deut.  2,3.  9;  Josh.  7.  II,  E;  I  Kings  19.  14. 

177 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

for  granted.  In  Exod.  24.  7,  8  (E)  the  laws  in  the  pre- 
ceding chapters  (21-23)  ^^^  represented  as  forming  the 
basis  of  the  covenent  relation  between  Yahweh  and  Israel; 
and  in  Exod.  34.  10,  27f.,  the  same  view  is  taken  of  the 
so-called  J  Decalogue, 

But  while  the  special  relation  of  Yahweh  to  Israel 
seems  thus  to  have  been  thought  of  as  a  covenant  or 
mutual  compact  even  in  preprophetic  times,  it  was  not 
until  the  seventh  century  that  this  conception  or  figure 
became  prominent.  In  Deuteronomy,  Ezekiel,  and  espe- 
cially the  Priestly  Code  it  is  a  ruling  idea,  and  it  appears 
also  in  Jeremiah  and  Deutero-Isaiah.  It  is,  however,  con- 
ceived in  two  different  ways.  In  Deuteronomy  it  is  rep- 
resented simply  as  a  historical  fact.  God  made  three 
covenants  with  Israel,  one  with  the  patriarchs,^^  one  at 
Horeb,^^  and  one  on  the  plains  of  Moab.^^  But  in  Jere- 
miah and  Ezekiel  a  more  abstract  or  ideal  conception 
of  the  covenant  appears.  These  prophets  refer  in  several 
instances  to  the  Mosaic  covenant,^"  but  along  with  it  they 
speak  of  a  future  covenant,  a  "new  covenant,"  ^^  a  "cove- 
nant of  peace,"  -^  an  "everlasting  covenant."  ^^  The 
new  covenant  does  not  exclude  the  older  one,  but  it  is  a 
covenant  grounded  in  the  essential  and  eternal  purpose  of 
God  rather  than  in  a  historical  transaction.  This  con- 
ception of  the  covenant  appears  also  in  Deutero-Isaiah,^^ 
and  it  likewise  underlies  the  Priestly  Code.     P,  if  we 

"  Deut.  4.  31 ;  7.  12. 

"4.  13;  5.2. 

"29.  I. 

^°Jer.  3.  16;  II.  2ff. ;  Ezek.  16.  8,  59;  20.  37. 

"Jer.  31.  31. 

"Ezek.  34.  25;  37.  26. 

"^  Ezek.  16.  60;  Jer.  32.  40,  probably  from  a  later  hand. 

''  Isa.  55-  3 ;  65.  8. 

178 


THE  LOVE  OF  GOD 

omit  the  single  reference  to  a  Mosaic  covenant  in  Lev. 
26.  45,  knows  of  but  two  historical  covenants,  one  with 
Noah,'^®  and  the  other  with  Abraham.^®  But  these  cove- 
nants were  not,  from  P's  point  of  view,  simply  historical 
compacts;  they  were,  rather,  revelations  of  a  higher 
eternal  covenant,^^  a  covenant  that  could  not  be  broken,^^ 
grounded  in  the  unchanging  purpose  of  God.^^ 

Where  the  covenant  between  Yahweh  and  Israel  is 
represented,  as  it  is  especially  in  Deuteronomy,  as  based 
on  a  definite  body  of  laws,  the  suggestion  might  naturally 
arise  that  the  covenant-idea  was  an  expression  of  a  legal 
relation  rather  than  a  relation  of  love.  And  it  is  true  that 
stress  is  often  laid  on  the  duty  of  obeying  the  laws  that 
formed  the  basis  of  the  covenant  with  Yahweh. ^^  But 
the  fundamental  thought  that  lay  back  of  the  covenant- 
idea  was  never  that  of  legal  obligation,  but  always  that 
of  the  divine  grace.  Covenant  and  grace  were  almost 
synonymous  terms.  "Jehovah  thy  God,"  we  read,  "will 
keep  with  thee  the  covenant  and  the  loving-kindness 
which  he  sware  unto  thy  fathers."  ^^  The  covenant  with 
Abraham  was  a  gracious  promise  that  the  land  of  Canaan 
would  be  given  to  his  seed.  ^^  And  when  their  possession 
of  the  land  was  threatened  by  the  Syrians  in  the  ninth 
century  and  still  more  seriously  by  other  foes  toward  the 
close  of  the  seventh  century,  the  people  naturally  found 

"  Gen.-  9. 

^Gen.  17. 

"Gen.  17.  7,  19. 

"Lev.  26.  44. 

^*  For  a  detailed  discussion  of  the  covenant-idea  in  the  Old  Testa- 
ment see  Die  Bundesvorstellung  im  Alien  Testament,  by  Richard 
Kraetzschmar. 

*Deut.  26.  16-19. 

'^Deut.  7.  12;  compare  Isa.  54.  10. 

»=Gen.  15.  18,  J. 

179 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

comfort  and  assurance  in  the  thought  of  the  covenant 
with  Yahweh.  He  was  by  virtue  of  his  covenant  with 
the  fathers  pledged  to  help  them.  This  help  did  not  come 
in  the  form  expected ;  their  land  was  lost.  But  they  never- 
theless continued  to  cling  to  the  covenant-idea.  They 
saw  in  it  not  only  a  guarantee  of  their  return  to  Palestine, 
but  an  assurance  of  the  eternal  favor  of  God  toward  them 
as  a  people.  Indeed,  the  covenant  with  its  assurance  of 
the  divine  grace  was  extended  by  P  to  men  generally, 
at  least  in  so  far  as  they  embraced  the  Judaic  faith.  It  is 
this  thought  that  underlies  the  account  of  the  covenant 
with  Noah.^^ 

Another  figure  that  plays  an  important  role  in  the  Old 
Testament  is  that  of  Yahweh  as  the  husband  of  Israel 
or  Israel  as  the  wife  of  Yahweh.  It  was  Hosea,  so  far 
as  we  know,  who  first  gave  ethical  significance  to  this 
figure.  The  figure  itself  was  not  new  with  him.  It  had 
been  current  among  heathen  peoples.  They  thought  of 
the  deity  as  wedded  to  his  people  or  to  the  land.  It  was 
this  idea  that  underlay  the  immoral  practices  connected 
with  the  Canaanitic  sanctuaries.  But  "slain  and  made 
carrion  by  the  heathen  religions,  the  figure  was  restored 
to  life  by  Hosea."  In  its  heathen  form  it  had  no  doubt 
been  long  current  in  Israel,  but  there  is  no  evidence  that 
before  his  time  it  had  been  spiritualized  and  incorporated 
into  the  higher  religious  faith  of  the  people.  To  have 
achieved  this  was  the  unique  distinction  of  Hosea.  He 
represented  Israel  as  the  wayward  wife  of  Yahweh.  By 
her  idolatry,  her  immorality,  her  foreign  intriguing,  her 
social  injustice,  her  violation  of  the  moral  law  in  general, 
she  had  been  guilty  of  illicit  relations  with  other  gods. 

"'Gen.  9;  compare  Isa.  42.  6;  49.  8. 

180 


THE  LOVE  OF  GOD 

She  had  broken  her  troth  with  Yahweh,  and  hence  was 
about  to  be  driven  from  his  house.  But  however  deserved 
this  punishment  may  have  been,  the  love  of  Yahweh  could 
not  altogether  desert  her.  "How,"  he  cries,  "shall  I  give 
thee  up,  Ephraim?  how  shall  I  cast  thee  off,  Israel?  how 
shall  I  make  thee  as  Admah?  how  shall  I  set  thee  as 
Zeboiim?  my  heart  is  turned  within  me,  my  compassions 
are  kindled  together.  I  will  not  execute  the  fierceness  of 
mine  anger,  I  will  not  return  to  destroy  Ephraim :  for  I 
am  God,  and  not  man ;  the  Holy  One  in  the  midst  of  thee ; 
and  I  will  not  come  in  wrath."  ^**  The  holy  wrath  of  Yah- 
weh was  tempered  and  held  in  check  by  his  love. 

It  is  here  that  Hosea's  most  significant  contribution  to 
the  doctrine  of  God  is  to  be  found.  Amos  had  once  for 
all  established  the  truth  that  God  is  righteousness  and  that 
religion  is  law.  What  Hosea  did  "was  to  prove  in  God 
so  great  and  new  a  mercy  as  was  capable  of  matching  that 
law."  Religion,  he  taught  us,  was  love  as  well  as  law, 
and  love,  he  held,  was  stronger  than  law.  Just  as  a  man 
by  a  deep  instinct  of  his  nature  seeks  a  wife  and  cleaves 
unto  her,  so  was  it  with  Yahweh  in  his  relation  to  Israel. 
There  was  a  deep  ingrained  bond  of  union  between  them. 
And  that  union  had  all  the  intensity,  all  the  passion,  all 
the  delicacy,  and  all  the  refinement  of  feeling  that  mani- 
fests itself  in  the  marriage  relation  in  its  highest  and 
purest  form.  To  have  fixed  upon  this  thought  and  to 
have  given  it  abiding  expression,  'was  no  small  achieve- 
ment; and  this  we  owe  to  Hosea.  Such  a  conception 
naturally  made  a  profound  impression  upon  the  people  of 
Israel.  The  later  prophets  employ  it,^^  and  under  its  in- 
fluence it  became  the  custom  to  speak  of  all  idolatry  as 

'*Hos.  II.  8-9. 

''  Jer.  2.  2 ;  3.  I ;  Ezek.  16 ;  23 ;  Isa.  50.  i ;  54-  5- 

181 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

harlotry.  Ezekiel,  it  may  be  added,  combines  the  ideas  of 
a  covenant  and  a  conjugal  relation,  regarding  the  two  as 
essentially  the  same.^® 

Another  figure  used  in  the  Old  Testament  to  express 
the  idea  of  the  divine  love  is  that  of  God  as  Father.  Both 
"husband"  and  "father"  expressed  to  the  ancient  Semite 
the  idea  of  authority  quite  as  much  as  that  of  love.  But  in 
Old  Testament  usage  the  latter  predominates.  There  are 
eleven  instances  in  the  Old  Testament  where  God  is 
spoken  of  as  Father,  and  in  all  except  twg^l  the  term  is 
used  in  a  kindly  affectionate  sense.^*  This  is  also  true  of 
the  cases  where  Yahweh  is  likened  to  a  father,^''  and  of  the 
correlative  expressions  where  Israel  is  spoken  of  as  God's 
son**^  or  the  Israelites  as  his  children.'** 

"Like  as  a  father  pitieth  his  children, 
So  Jehovah  pitieth  them  that  fear  him."  *^ 

"When  Israel  was  a  child,  then  I  loved  him,  and  called  my 
son  out  of  Egypt.  ...  I  taught  Ephraim  to  walk;  I 
took  them  on  my  arms;  ...  I  drew  them  with  cords 
of  a  man,  with  bands  of  love."  ^^  "Thou,  O  Jehovah,  art 
our  Father ;  our  Redeemer  from  everlasting  is  thy  name** 
It  is  commonly  stated  that  the  Fatherhood  of  God  in  the 


■^  Ezek.  i6.  8. 
"'Mai.  I.  6;  2.  10. 

'*Jer.  3.  4,  19;  31.  9;  Isa.  63.  16;  64.  8;  Deut.  32.  6;  2  Sara.  7.  14; 
Psa.  68.  5 ;  89.  27. 

'"  Psa.  103.  13 ;  Deut.  i.  31 ;  8.  5. 
-^  *"  Hos.  II.  I ;  Exod.  4.  22;  Jer.  31.  20. 
*'Hos.  I.  10;  Deut.  14.  i;  Isa.  43.  6. 
*^  Psa.  103.  13. 
*'Hos.  II.  1-4. 
**  Isa.  63.  16. 


THE  LOVE  OF  GOD 

Old  Testament  applied  only  to  the  nation.  It  was  not 
personal.  The  individual  Israelite  did  not  have  the  right 
to  call  himself  Yahweh's  son.  But  this  is  open  to  serious 
question.  It  is  true  that  in  most  of  the  passages  above 
cited  it  is  the  nation  of  which  Yahweh  is  said  to  be  the 
Father.  But  in  two  of  them*^  it  is  the  Messiah  to  whom 
he  is  represented  as  standing  in  a  paternal  relation;  in 
several  others^^  it  is  individual  Israelites;  and  in  still 
others*'^  the  latter  are  spoken  of  as  sons  of  God.  It  is, 
therefore,  surely  possible  and  probable  that  the  individual 
Israelite  in  Old  Testament  times  thought  of  himself  as 
a  son  of  God  and  addressed  Yahweh  as  his  Father.  This 
method  of  address  to  the  Deity  was  current  in  idolatrous 
circles  in  Israel,^^  and  in  the  postcanonical  literature  we 
occasionally  find  it.  In  Ecclesiasticus  23.  i,  4  we  read: 
"O  Lord,  Father  and  Master  of  my  life,  .  .  .  O  Lord, 
Father  and  God  of  my  life."  Not  until  the  Christian  era, 
it  is  true,  did  this  method  of  address  become  regular  and 
normative.  But  in  the  Old  Testament  period  it  must  to 
some  extent  have  been  current  from  the  earliest  times. 
For  the  presuppositions  of  its  use  were  always  there. 
There  never  was  a  time  in  the  history  of  Israel  when  the 
individual  did  not  regard  himself  as  under  the  providen- 
tial care  of  Yahweh. 

The  idea  of  the  Fatherhood  of  God  was  not  peculiar 
to  Hebrew  and  Christian  thought.  It  was  a  common 
heathen  conception.  But  among  the  heathen  the  divine 
fatherhood  was  conceived  in  a  physical  sense.  The  clan 
or  tribe  traced  its  descent  back  to  its  god.    In  that  sense 


'  2  Sam.  7.  14 ;  Psa.  89.  27. 
'  Psa.  68.  5 ;  Isa.  63.  16 ;  64.  8. 
'Hos.  I.  10;  Deut.  14.  i;  Isa.  43.  6. 
'  Jer.  2.  27. 

183 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

its  members  were  sons  and  daughters  of  the  deity.^^ 
*Tn  Christianity,"  on  the  other  hand,  "and  already  in  the 
spiritual  religion  of  the  Hebrews,  the  idea  of  divine 
Fatherhood  is  entirely  dissociated  from  the  physical 
basis  of  natural  fatherhood.  Man  was  created  in  the 
image  of  God,  but  he  was  not  begotten;  God's  sonship  is 
not  a  thing  of  nature,  but  a  thing  of  grace.  In  the  Old 
Testament,  Israel  is  Yahweh's  son,  and  Yahweh  is  his 
Father  who  created  him;  but  this  creation  is  not  a  phys- 
ical act,  it  refers  to  the  series  of  gracious  deeds  by  which 
Israel  was  shaped  into  a  nation."  ^^  The  divine  Father- 
hood in  the  Old  Testament  was  thus  a  spiritual  relation- 
ship. The  term  was  a  figurative  expression  of  the  divine 
love  and  the  divine  creative  activity.  How  early  in 
Israel's  history  the  term  was  used  in  this  sense,  we  do  not 
know.  But  there  is  no  good  reason  why  it  should  not 
have  been  thus  used  from  the  time  of  Moses  down.  And 
this  is  also  true  of  other  figures  expressive  of  the  divine 
care,  such  as  those  which  represent  God  as  a  physician,^^ 
and  as  a  shepherd.^^ 

The  difference  between  Hosea's  teaching  concerning 
the  divine  love  and  that  of  his  predecessors  was  simply 
one  of  degree.  The  assurance  of  Yahweh's  good  will  had 
formed  the  basis  of  Israel's  religion  from  the  beginning. 
At  any  time  during  the  preprophetic  period  Yahweh's 
relation  to  Israel  might  have  been  represented  as  that  of 
a  covenant;  he  might  also  have  been  spoken  of  as  Israel's 
father  or  husband  or  physician  or  shepherd.  There  is 
nothing  in  any  of  these  figures  that  would  have  been 


"Num.  21.  29,  E;  Mai.  2.  11. 

''"  W.  R.  Smith,  The  Religion  of  the  Semites,  p.  41. 

"'  Exod.  15.  26 ;  Hos.  6.  i ;  7.  i ;  14.  5. 

"  Psa.  23 ;  Ezek.  34. 

184 


THE  LOVE  OF  GOD 

inconsistent  with  the  rehgious  consciousness  of  early 
Israel.  But  as  yet  the  nation's  religious  consciousness 
was  more  or  less  amorphous.  It  had  not  crystallized  into 
definite  form.  It  moved  also  to  a  large  extent  on  a  low 
material  plane.  What  it  needed  was  to  be  lifted  to  a 
higher  ethical  level.  It  needed  to  have  the  love  of  Yah- 
weh  exhibited  in  so  striking  a  way,  that  men  would  see 
that  it  was  the  deepest  attribute  of  the  divine  nature,  an 
attribute  that  could  be  trusted  in  spite  of  all  human  way- 
wardness and  suffering,  an  attribute  that  made  certain 
the  ultimate  solution  of  the  problem  of  redemption.  And 
this  Hosea  did  for  Hebrew  thought.  He  set  the  grace  of 
God  on  high  as  had  not  been  done  before.  He  took  the 
tenderest  and  most  intimate  human  relations  and  made 
them  symbols,  broken  lights,  of  the  divine  affection. 
"There  is,"  says  George  Adam  Smith,  "no  truth  uttered 
by  later  prophets  about  the  divine  grace,  which  we  do 
not  find  in  germ  in  him.  .  .  .  He  is  the  first  prophet 
of  grace,  Israel's  first  evangelist."  ^^ 

But  significant  as  was  the  teaching  of  Hosea,  there  was 
one  important  regard  in  which  it  was  defective.  The 
divine  love  that  he  preached  was  restricted  to  Israel.  He 
had  no  message  of  grace  for  the  heathen  world.  At 
least  no  utterance  of  his  to  that  effect  has  come  down  to 
us.  This  does  not  mean  that  he  regarded  the  rule  of 
Yahweh  as  confined  to  Israel.  He  was  a  monotheist.  He 
recognized  no  real  Deity  except  Yahweh.  But  as  yet  the 
practical  implications  of  monotheism  had  not  been 
worked  out.  The  divine  purpose  concerning  the  hea- 
then world  had  not  been  made  the  subject  of  reflection. 
Amos  had  declared  that  the  divine  providence  was  uni- 

^^  The  Book  of  the  Twelve  Prophets,  vol.  i,  p.  230, 

185 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

versal.  It  embraced  heathen  peoples  hke  the  Philis- 
tines and  Syrians  as  well  as  Israel. ^^  And  Isaiah  a 
little  later  represented  the  peoples  of  the  world  as  com- 
ing to  Jerusalem  for  instruction  and  guidance.''^  But 
such  visions  and  insights  were  wholly  incidental  to 
the  work  of  the  eighth-century  prophets.  The  local 
problems  of  their  day  were  too  engrossing  to  per- 
mit much  attention  being  paid  to  the  heathen.  The 
very  existence  of  the  Israelitic  state  was  at  stake,  and  so 
long  as  this  remained  the  case,  there  was  little  opportu- 
nity or  occasion  to  consider  the  relation  of  Yahweh  to  the 
world  as  a  whole.  And  so  it  came  to  pass  that  universal- 
ism,  which  is  logically  the  correlate  of  monotheism,  did 
not  become  a  distinct  feature  of  Israelitic  thought  until 
considerably  later. 

We  find  in  Jeremiah^®  and  EzekieP'^  occasional 
glimpses  of  a  redeemed  heathenism,  but  it  is  not  until  we 
come  to  Deutero-Isaiah  that  the  gracious  purpose  of 
Yahweh  to  the  world  as  a  whole  is  made  a  cardinal  theme 
of  prophetic  preaching.  "A  law,"  we  here  read,  "shall  go 
forth  from  me,  and  I  will  establish  my  justice  for  a 
light  of  the  peoples.  My  righteousness  is  near,  my  salva- 
tion is  gone  forth,  and  mine  arms  shall  judge  the  peo- 
ples; the  isles  shall  wait  for  me,  and  on  mine  arm  shall 
they  trust.  .  .  .  Look  unto  me,  and  be  ye  saved,  all 
the  ends  of  the  earth;  for  I  am  God,  and  there  is  none 
else.  By  myself  have  I  sworn,  the  word  has  gone  forth 
from  my  mouth  in  righteousness,  and  shall  not  return, 
that  unto  me  every  knee  shall  bow,  every  tongue  shall 


"  Amos  9.  7. 

"Isa 

.  2.  2-4. 

"16. 

19-20. 

''16. 

53-63. 

x86 


THE  LOVE  OF  GOD 

swear."  ^^  The  supreme  task  of  the  Servant,  ideal  Israel, 
is  that  of  being  a  light  to  the  Gentiles.^®  The  whole  plan 
of  God  has  as  its  goal  the  redemption  of  all  man- 
kind. This  idea  also  finds  expression  in  some  of  the 
Psalms^*'  and  later  prophecies.®^  But  it  is  in  the  book  of 
Jonah  that  the  divine  love  for  the  heathen  receives  its 
most  persuasive  and  affecting  expression.  Here  Israel  is 
rebuked  for  its  narrow  and  unsympathetic  attitude  toward 
the  heathen.  Jonah,  who  represents  Israel,  became  angry 
when  the  divine  mercy  was  extended  to  the  people  of 
Nineveh.  How  unnatural  and  unhuman  this  was,  is  illus- 
trated by  the  prophet's  attitude  toward  the  gourd.  A 
wild,  ephemeral  plant  had  suddenly  sprung  up.  Jonah  had 
expended  no  labor  upon  it,  he  had  not  made  it  grow,  and 
yet  when  it  suddenly  perished  he  was  full  of  pity  for  it. 
"And  should  not  I,"  asks  Yahweh,  "have  regard  for  Nine- 
veh, that  great  city,  wherein  are  more  than  six  score  thou- 
sand persons  that  cannot  discern  between  their  right  hand 
and  their  left  hand;  and  also  much  cattle?"  ^^  The  love 
of  God  for  the  heathen  is  here  grounded  in  the  natural 
instinct  of  pity  for  the  needy,  and  especially  in  the  feeling 
of  interest  and  sympathy  that  grows  out  of  the  sense  of 
creatorship.  We  love  that  which  we  create.®^  God  has 
created  all  things,  and  consequently  his  love  embraces  all 
mankind;  indeed,  it  extends  even  to  the  animal  world. 
"Thou  lackest  much,"  says  the  author  of  2  Esdras,®* 
"before  thou  canst  love  my  creature  more  than  I." 

"Isa.  51.  4,  s;  45.  ^'2,  23. 
"49.  6. 

''22. 27;  65. 5. 

"  Isa.  19.  23-25. 
"4.  II. 

**  Compare  Jer.  45.  4. 
•*2Esdras8.  47. 

197 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

This  generous  attitude  toward  the  heathen  was  shared 
by  only  a  Hmited  number  in  postexiHc  Judaism.  But  it 
represented  the  Hne  along  which  the  growing  revelation 
of  God  was  certain  to  develop.  The  one  Creator  of  the 
world  and  God  of  righteousness  must  needs  eventually 
manifest  to  all  men  the  same  love  that  he  had  shown  to 
Israel.  National  prejudice  might  for  a  while  resist  this 
natural  and  logical  development  of  religious  thought,  but 
the  barrier  thus  created  could  not  be  permanent.  Ulti- 
mately some  movement  would  certainly  arise,  which 
would  break  through  the  artificial  restrictions  created  by 
post-exilic  priests  and  scribes  and  make  the  God  of  the 
prophets  in  very  truth  the  God  of  all  nations;  so  that  in 
his  kingdom  there  would  be  "neither  Greek  nor  Jew,  cir- 
cumcision nor  uncircumcision,  Barbarian,  Scythian,  bond 
nor  free." 

In  Christianity  this  goal  was  realized ;  and  in  the  pro- 
cess of  expansion  the  love  of  God  lost  none  of  its  depth 
or  intensity.  Rather  did  it  grow,  and  grow  to  a  surpris- 
ing degree,  in  power  and  richness  of  content.  The  dis- 
tinctive element  in  it,  as  it  was  conceived  by  Christianity, 
has  been  put  in  such  an  impressive  and  admirable  way  by 
Professor  Bowne  that  I  quote  from  him  at  some  length: 
"In  the  exercise  of  his  love  God  has  sent  us  rain  from 
heaven  and  fruitful  seasons  and  daily  bread.  But  this 
was  not  enough.  He  also  sent  us  prophets  and  teachers 
to  reveal  his  will.  But  this  also  was  not  enough.  There 
was  a  still  higher  thought,  and  Christianity  dared  to  think 
it.  It  was  that  God  himself  should  come  into  humanity 
for  his  supreme  self -manifestation  and  for  the  redemp- 
tion of  men,  And  when  the  way  had  been  prepared, 
the  Divine  Son  appears  as  the  Divine  Redeemer.  There 
is  nothing  beyond  this.     The  possibilities  of  grace  are 


THE  LOVE  OF  GOD 

exhausted.  God  has  made  the  highest  moral  revelation 
of  himself.  He  is  seen  at  the  head  of  all  those  who  love, 
and  for  love's  sake  bear  burdens  and  sacrifice  themselves. 
A  Divine  Person  working  for  love's  sake  a  divine  work 
for  man's  redemption  is  the  center  of  the  Christian  faith 
and  the  source  of  its  power.  Drop  it  out  of  our  teaching, 
and,  though  the  external  form  and  facts  remain  un- 
changed, the  life  is  gone  nevertheless.  Men  wonder  that 
Christian  faith  should  cling  so  pertinaciously  to  this  mys- 
terious doctrine — mysterious  to  speculation,  but  clear  to 
love — but  the  reason  is  that  it  contains  all  that  is  distinc- 
tively Christian.  The  self-sacrificing  love  of  God,  and 
even  the  ethical  perfection  and  moral  grandeur  of  God, 
are  all  bound  up  in  this  doctrine.  That  which  stirs  men's 
hearts  has  always  been  the  condescension,  the  grace  of  the 
Lord  Jesus,  the  cross,  that  is,  the  self-renunciation,  of 
Christ.  'Herein  is  love,  not  that  we  loved  God,  but  that 
he  loved  us,  and  sent  his  Son  to  be  the  propitiation  for 
our  sins.'  'He  loved  us  and  gave  himself  for  us.'  Now 
the  revelation  of  love  and  righteousness  is  complete.  And 
now  not  merely  gratitude,  but  adoring  love  and  absolute 
self-surrender,  become  possible  on  our  part.  Now  intel- 
lect and  conscience  and  heart  and  will  alike  can  come 
to  God  and  say :  'Thy  kingdom  come.  Thy  will  be  done.' 
No  wonder  that  Paul  cried  out,  'God  forbid  that  I  should 
glory,  save  in  the  cross  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ.'  No 
wonder  that  Peter  declares  that  the  angels  desire  to  look 
into  this  grace  of  God.  For  surely  in  earth  or  heaven 
there  is  nothing  great  or  divine  besides."  ®^ 

This  concludes  our  study  of  the  doctrine  of  God.    We 
have  seen  that  the  God  of  the  Hebrews  was  from  the  be- 


Studies  in  Christianity,  p.  102-104. 
189 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

ginning  a  distinctly  personal  Being.  He  stood  in  a  free 
and  independent  relation  to  the  world.  His  personality 
did  not  blend  with  nature  nor  lose  itself  in  a  pantheistic 
haze.  It  retained  throughout  its  unity  and  distinctness. 
Ideas  relative  to  the  divine  nature  and  power  were  natu- 
rally at  first  vague  and  unsettled.  Yahweh  was  not 
thought  of  as  God  of  all  the  world,  and  yet  he  was  not 
regarded  as  bound  to  any  particular  place,  nor  as  neces- 
sarily limited  in  the  exercise  of  his  power.  He  was  equal 
to  all  the  demands  made  upon  him,  and  as  these  demands 
increased,  the  range  of  his  being  and  power  increased 
with  them.  At  an  early  date  he  came  to  be  thought  of  as 
Creator  of  the  world.  Stress  was  not  laid  on  this  idea, 
nor  was  it  interpreted  as  excluding  the  existence  of  other 
gods,  until  the  Israelites  in  exile  were  brought  face  to 
face  with  a  formidable  and  threatening  heathenism;  but 
the  idea  itself  was  preprophetic,  if  not  Mosaic.  In  a 
similar  v^^ay  the  universal  rule  of  Yahweh  did  not  come 
to  definiteness  of  expression  until  the  idea  of  the  world 
and  the  world-empire  "was  beaten  into  the  trembling 
hearts  of  the  prophets  by  the  pitiless  hammer-strokes  of 
fate;"^^  but  the  general  conception  of  his  unhmited 
power  was  older.  From  the  outset  he  was  for  all  practical 
purposes  omnipotent.  Other  deities  existed,  but  they 
interposed  no  barrier  to  the  execution  of  his  will;  and,  as 
the  life  of  the  people  developed  and  their  thought  ex- 
panded, he  took  under  his  control  more  and  more  of  the 
Elohim-world,  until  finally  no  place  was  left  for  other 
gods,  and  they  came  to  be  regarded  as  virtually  nonex- 
istent. 

Along  with  the  gradual  expansion  of  the  power  and 
being  of  Yahweh  went  also  a  gradual  moralization  of 

*°Kittel,  History  of  the  Hchrczcs,  vol.  i,  p.  242. 

190 


THE  LOVE  OF  GOD 

his  character.  He  was  always  looked  upon  as  "spiritual" 
and  "holy,"  but  at  first  no  ethical  quality  attached  to  these 
terms.  They  simply  expressed  the  supernatural  and  mys- 
terious character  of  divinity,  and  were  applied  to  other 
gods  as  well.  Indeed,  to  an  outward  observer  Yahweh 
may  not  at  the  outset  have  seemed  to  differ  in  any  im- 
portant regard  from  the  gods  of  the  neighboring  peoples. 
Yet  even  then  there  was  something  about  him  that  evoked 
from  his  people  an  intense  and  sustained  devotion  such 
as  we  nowhere  else  find.  And  this  devotion  had  in  it  the 
germ  of  the  whole  subsequent  religious  development  in 
Israel.  It  led  men  to  idealize  the  character  of  Yahweh. 
It  led  them  to  think  of  him  as  essentially  a  God  of 
righteousness  and  love.  Thus  endowed,  he  stood  heaven- 
high  above  all  other  gods.  He  was  "spiritual"  and  "holy" 
in  an  altogether  unique  sense.  He  needed  and  would 
tolerate  no  images  in  his  worship.  He  had  no  interest  in 
sacrifices,  and  cared  not  for  rites  and  ceremonies.  All 
that  he  asked  of  men  was  that  they  should  do  justly,  love 
mercy,  and  walk  humbly  before  him. 

It  was  this  ethical  quality  that  by  the  eighth  century 
B.  C.  constituted  the  unique  characteristic  of  Yahweh.  It 
was  this  that  differentiated  him  from  other  deities,  and 
gave  to  him  his  distinctive  value.  What  made  it  worth 
while  believing  in  him  was  his  righteousness  and  his  love. 
It  was  these  qualities  that  made  him  God  in  the  full  sense 
of  the  term.  And  so  the  conclusion  was  drawn  that  other 
gods,  who  lacked  these  qualities,  were  not  really  gods. 
True  divinity  is  indistinguishable  from  moral  perfection. 
Yahweh,  therefore,  who  alone  is  morally  perfect,  is  the 
only  God.  Thus  the  logic  of  conscience  joined  hands 
with  the  soul's  need  of  an  all-sufficient  helper,  and  ethical 
monotheism  was  the  result. 

191 


CHAPTER  IX 
ANGELS  AND  OTHER  DIVINE  BEINGS 

Divinity  with  the  Hebrews  was  practically  synony- 
mous with  Yahweh,  and  yet  the  two  ideas  were  not  alto- 
gether conterminous.  In  the  earlier  period  of  their  his- 
tory the  Israelites  did  not  deny  the  existence  of  other 
gods,  and  after  they  had  begun  to  assert  the  sole  deity  of 
Yahweh  they  still  believed  that  there  were  other  super- 
natural beings  who  like  Yahweh  were  invisible  and  spirit- 
ual, and  in  this  sense  divine.  To  this  group  belong  espe- 
cially the  angels.  They  were  subordinate  to  Yahweh,  but 
partook  of  his  nature  and  served  a  distinct  purpose  in  the 
divine  economy. 

In  the  strict  sense  of  the  term  W.  H.  Bennett  is  prob- 
ably right  in  defining  an  angel  as  "a.  subordinate  super- 
human being  in  monotheistic  religions,"  and  consequently 
in  holding  that  "in  the  earlier  periods  of  the  religion  of 
Israel  .  .  .  the  idea  of  angel  in  the  modern  sense  does 
not  occur."  ^  But  the  distinction  between  a  subordinate 
superhuman  being  in  a  monotheistic  and  in  a  monolatrous 
system  is  at  the  most  slight,  and  may  in  our  discussion 
be  disregarded.  There  is,  furthermore,  no  date  or  even 
period  which  can  be  fixed  upon  with  certainty  as  marking 
the  transition  from  monolatry  to  monotheism.  The  de- 
velopment was  a  very  gradual  one  and  was  brought  about 
almost  unconsciously.     We  may,  therefore,  use  the  term 

'  Encyclopu'dia  Britannica,  vol.   ii,  4f. 

J92 


ANGELS  AND  OTHER  DIVINE  BEINGS 

"angel"  freely  to  designate  a  subordinate  supernatural 
being  referred  to  during  any  period  of  Israel's  history. 

The  common  Hebrew  word  for  "angel,"  malak,  means 
"messenger,"  and  in  this  sense  is  used  of  men^  as  well  as 
angels.  The  angels  are  also  spoken  of  as  "ministers."  ^ 
They  are  designated  "sons  of  Elohim"  ^  and  "sons  of 
Elim."  ^  They  are  described  as  "holy  ones"  ^  and  watch- 
ers," '^  and  are  referred  to  as  the  "host"  or  "hosts"  of 
heaven,  of  God,  of  Yahweh.^  The  term  "host"  was  also 
applied  to  the  stars.^  Between  the  stars  and  angels  there 
was  supposed  to  be  a  close  connection.^''  Whether  the 
angels  were  spoken  of  as  Elohim,  "gods,"  as  well  as 
sons  of  Elohim  is  a  question.  In  Psa.  8.  5.  Elohim  is 
commonly  rendered  "angels,"  ^^  and  it  is  quite  possible 
that  the  term  was  used  in  this  sense;  for  in  several  in- 
stances it  has  the  general  meaning  of  "a  godlike  being,"  ^^ 
and  an  angel  may  very  well  have  been  so  designated. 
But  in  this  particular  passage  Elohim  probably  means 
neither  "angels"  nor  "God"  exclusively,  but  both.  It  is 
divine  beings  generally,  than  whom  man  has  been  made 
but  a  little  lower. 

These  different  terms  applied  to  angelic  beings  may  be 
divided  into  two  groups,  those  that  define  the  nature  of 
angels  and  those  that  describe  their  office  or  function.    To 

■  Gen.  32.  3,  J  ;  Num.  21.  21,  E  ;  Hag.  i.  13  ;  Mai.  2,  7. 
^  Psa.  103.  21. 

*  Gen.  6.  2,  4,  J ;  Job.  i.  6 ;  2.  i. 
^  Psa.  29.  I ;  89.  6. 

*  Psa.  89.  5,  7 ;  Job  5.  i ;  Zech.  14.  5. 
'  Dan.  4.  13,  17. 

*  I  Kings  22.  19;  Psa.  103.  21  ;  148.  2;  Isa.  24.  21  ;  Dan.  8.  10. 

*  Deut.  4.  19;  Isa.  34.  4;  40.  26;  Jer.  2i2,-  22. 

"Job  38.7. 
"  Heb.  2.  7. 
^"  I  Sam.  28.  13;  Exod.  4.  16;  7.  i. 

193 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

the  first  group  belong  the  terms  "sons  of  God"  and 
"holy  ones."  "Sons  of  God"  is  not  to  be  understood  in 
a  physical  or  genealogical  sense.  Like  the  analogous  ex- 
pression "sons  of  the  prophets,"  it  denotes  membership 
in  a  guild,  in  this  case  the  divine  guild.  The  "sons  of 
God,"  or  "sons  of  the  gods,"  were  divine  beings  con- 
ceived as  forming  a  class  or  fraternity.  They  partook  of 
the  divine  nature,  were  spirits,  belonged  to  the  Elohim 
world.  It  was  in  this  sense  probably  also  that  angels  were 
spoken  of  as  "the  holy  ones."  Holiness,  as  we  have  seen, 
was  a  unique  characteristic  of  Deity,  and  in  it  the  angels 
as  divine  beings  shared.  Indeed,  "holy"  as  applied  to 
them  was  hardly  more  than  a  synonym  for  "divine."  It 
may  be  that  they  were  also  thought  of  as  "holy"  in  the 
later  and  derived  sense  of  the  term,  that  is,  as  dedicated 
to  the  service  of  God.  They  were  ministers  of  Yahweh, 
and  hence,  like  the  priests  of  the  temple,  may  naturally 
from  this  point  of  view  have  been  regarded  as  holy.  In 
later  times  especially,  when  the  distinction  between  the 
Deity  and  all  subordinate  forms  of  being  became  more 
and  more  pronounced,  this  usage  must  almost  inevitably 
have  arisen. 

The  function  of  the  angels  is  expressed  by  the  terms 
"messengers,"  "ministers,"  and  "watchers,"  and  is  also 
implied  in  their  being  spoken  of  as  the  "host"  of  heaven. 
They  are  the  army  of  God;  they  carry  out  his  will,  obey 
his  commands.  They  represent  and  mediate  the  Divine 
Providence.  They  make  known  the  divine  will.  In  all 
the  multitudinous  forms  of  the  divine  activity  they  mani- 
fest themselves  as  the  efficient  agents  of  the  Most  High. 
They  have  no  independent  purposes  or  functions  of  their 
own.  Their  activity  is  merged  in  that  of  God.  In  this 
complete  subordination  of  angelic  beings  to  the  Deity  we 

194 


ANGELS  AND  OTHER  DIVINE  BEINGS 

no  doubt  have  a  relatively  late  development.  In  earlier 
times  there  were  "sons  of  God"  who  were  looked  upon 
as  acting  contrary  to  the  divine  will.  The  one  distinct 
illustration  of  this  in  the  Old  Testament  is  found  in  Gen. 
6.  1-4,  a  passage  that  has  been  correctly  described  as  a 
piece  of  "unassimilated  mythology."  The  "sons  of  God" 
are  here  represented  as  conducting  themselves  in  per- 
haps a  sensual,  certainly  a  high-handed  manner  toward 
God's  lower  creatures.  When  they  "saw  the  daughters 
of  men  that  they  were  fair,  .  .  .  they  took  them  wives 
of  all  that  they  chose."  This  representation  of  the  sons 
of  Elohim  is  so  different  from  that  of  the  malakim,  or 
angels,  that  it  is  evident  that  the  two  conceptions  must 
originally  have  been  independent.  Indeed,  it  is  nowhere 
in  the  Old  Testament  distinctly  stated  that  the  sons  of 
Elohim  were  the  same  as  the  malakim.  The  two  con- 
ceptions gradually  merged  into  unity,  but  the  unity  is  not 
directly  affirmed. 

As  to  the  origin  of  the  belief  in  angels  there  is  consid- 
erable difference  of  opinion.  Kosters^^  argued  at  length 
that  the  "sons  of  God"  were  the  gods  of  the  heathen  de- 
graded into  ministering  servants  of  the  one  God  Yah- 
weh.  For  this  view  there  is  some  support  in  Scripture. 
In  Psa.  89.  6  we,  for  instance,  read,  "Who  among  the 
sons  of  the  mighty  is  like  unto  Jehovah?"  and  in  Psa. 
86.  8,  "There  is  none  like  unto  thee  among  the  gods,  O 
Lord."  The  original  has,  instead  of  "the  mighty," 
Elim  (gods).  In  these  two  verses  the  heathen  gods  and 
the  "sons  of  the  gods"  seem  thus  to  be  equated.  And  this 
is  manifestly  the  teaching  of  Deut.  32.  8,  if  we  adopt  the 

"//<?<  ontstaan  en  de  ontwickkehmg  dcr  angclologie  onder  Israel, 
Theol.  Tijdschr.,  1876. 

195 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

reading  of  the  Septuagint.  The  Most  High  "set  the 
bounds  of  the  peoples  according  to  the  number  of  the 
sons  of  God,"  each  nation  having  its  own  deity  or  guard- 
ian angel.  This  is  also  the  view  of  Deut.  4.  19,  where  it 
is  stated  that  Yahweh  "allotted  unto  all  the  peoples  under 
the  whole  heaven"  the  various  heavenly  bodies  as  objects 
of  worship.  And  in  Dan.  10.  13,  20  the  "princes"  or 
patron-angels  of  Persia  and  Greece  probably  represent 
the  gods  of  these  nations.  Furthermore,  it  may  be  noted 
that  in  Deut.  32.  17  and  Psa.  106.  36f.,  the  heathen  gods 
and  demons  (shedim)  seem  to  merge  into  one  another. 
The  two  ideas  are  treated  as  virtually  synonymous. 

These  facts  make  it  clear  that  the  reduction  of  heathen 
deities  to  the  plane  of  "angels"  or  subordinate  spirits  was 
not  unknown  to  Hebrew  thought.  But  the  passages  in 
which  the  idea  is  expressed  are  all  comparatively  late, 
and  are  perhaps  to  be  ascribed  to  the  effort  of  later  think- 
ers to  harmonize  the  supremacy  of  Yahweh  with  the  fact 
of  heathenism.  The  earlier  and  prevailing  tendency  in 
the  Old  Testament  was  to  regard  the  heathen  gods  as  es- 
sentially hostile  to  Yahweh.  The  prophets  could  see 
nothing  good  in  them.  They  were  vanities  and  were 
doomed  to  destruction.^^  Such  an  attitude  was  mani- 
festly unfavorable  to  the  transformation  of  the  gods  of 
the  heathen  into  ministering  angels  of  Yahweh.  It  is 
hardly  probal^le,  therefore,  that  the  Israelitic  belief  in 
angels  grew  up  in  this  way. 

If,  however,  we  substitute  for  the  foreign  gods  of 
Kosters'  theory  as  some  do,  the  polytheistic  gods  and  ani- 
mistic spirits  of  Israel's  pre-Mosaic  religion,  it  can  hardly 
be  doubted  that  we  have  here  an  important  source  of 
Hebrew  angelology.    When  Yahweh  was  first  proclaimed 

"  Jcr.  2.  5,  II ;  10.  II ;  Zeph.  2.  11. 

196 


ANGELS  AND  OTHER  DIVINE  BEINGS 

and  acclaimed  as  Israel's  God,  the  older  gods  and  spirits 
did  not  pass  out  of  Israelitic  thought,  nor  was  their  ex- 
istence denied.  They  simply  sank  to  a  lower  grade  of 
being  and  came  more  or  less  directly  under  the  control  of 
Yahweh.  Some  of  them  at  least  were  regarded  as  form- 
ing his  retinue  or  council.  It  was  probably  in  this  way 
also  that  the  heathen  belief  in  superhuman  beings  of  a 
subordinate  rank  arose.  The  gods  and  spirits  of  a  lower 
stage  of  culture  became  the  ministering  servants  of  the 
gods  of  a  new  age.  In  this  regard  there  was  nothing 
peculiar  about  the  Israelitic  belief  in  angels. 

But  apart  from  this  common  source  of  the  belief  in 
subordinate  superhuman  beings,  George  Adam  Smith  is 
no  doubt  right  in  contending  that  the  belief  "must  have 
sprung  up  in  the  natural  tendency  to  provide  the  royal 
deity  of  a  people  with  a  court,  an  army,  and  servants. 
In  the  pious  minds  of  early  Israel  there  must  have  been 
a  kind  of  necessity  to  believe  and  develop  this — a  necessity 
imposed  firstly  by  the  belief  in  Yahweh' s  residence  as  con- 
fined to  one  spot,  Sinai  or  Jerusalem,  from  which  he  him- 
self went  forth  only  upon  great  occasions  to  the  deliver- 
ance of  his  people  as  a  whole ;  and  secondly  by  the  unwill- 
ingness to  conceive  of  his  personal  appearance  in  mis- 
sions of  a  menial  nature,  or  to  represent  him  in  the  hu- 
man form  in  which,  according  to  primitive  ideas,  he  could 
alone  hold  converse  with  men."  ^^  In  this  field  popular 
imagination  had  free  play.  It  could  create  its  own  ob- 
jects; and  there  can  hardly  be  a  doubt  that  this  factor 
played  an  important  role  in  the  development  of  the  He- 
brew conception  of  the  angelic  world.  The  idea  of  a 
court  of  heaven  or  a  divine  council  is  one  to  which  we 
have  several  references  in  the  early  literature.     In  the 

"  The  Book  of  the  Twelve  Prophets,  vol.  ii,  p.  310. 

197 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

inaugural  vision  of  Isaiah  (Chap.  6)  the  attendants  of 
Yahweh  are  termed  seraphim,  and  in  i  Kings  22.  19-22 
they  are  spoken  of  as  "the  host  of  heaven."  ^^  It  is  to 
this  "host"  or  council  that  the  plural  pronoun  in  Gen. 
I.  26;  3.  22;  and  II.  7,  as  well  as  Isa.  6.  8,  refers.  God 
here  speaks  for  the  angelic  beings  by  whom  he  was  sur- 
rounded. In  this  connection  attention  may  also  be  di- 
rected to  the  angelic  horsemen  referred  to  in  2  Kings  2, 
II  and  6.  17.  These  horsemen  figured  prominently  in 
the  later  apocalyptic  literature. 

The  history  of  Hebrew  angelology  was  marked,  as  we 
have  already  seen,  by  the  gradual  merging  of  two  con- 
ceptions, that  of  the  sons  of  Elohim  and  that  of  the  niala- 
kim.  With  reference  to  the  origin  of  the  latter  conception 
there  is  not  a  little  difference  of  opinion.  Some  hold  that 
the  term  did  not  during  the  preexilic  period  denote  dis- 
tinct beings  but  simply  different  manifestations  of  Yah- 
weh. This  was  true  both  of  the  singular  and  the  plural 
forms  of  the  word.  And  even  if  distinct  beings  were  de- 
noted by  the  term,  it  is  contended  that  they  were  not 
thought  of  as  messengers  from  God  to  men.  No  need  of 
mediation  was  felt  during  this  early  period.  Yahweh 
manifested  himself  directly  to  men,  appeared  among  them 
and  spoke  to  them.  The  malakim,  if  distinct  beings,  at- 
tended Yahweh,  forming  a  kind  of  divine  court,  but  they 
were  not  mediators.  The  angelic  beings  who  at  the  time 
did  enter  into  relations  with  men  were  the  sons  of  Elohim, 
and  they  were  not  subject  to  Yahweh,  but  were  independ- 
ent beings. 

In  this  view  there  are  some  elements  of  truth.  It  is  true 
that  the  angel  of  Yahweh  frequently  referred  to  in  the 

^^  Compare  Josh.  5.  i4ff. 

198 


ANGELS  AND  OTHER  DIVINE  BEINGS 

preexilic  literature  is  in  many  instances  represented  not  as 
a  distinct  being  but  simply  as  a  manifestation  of  Yah- 
weh/"  and  it  is  also  true  that  there  are  only  a  very  few 
instances  in  the  early  literature  where  more  than  one 
"angel"  or  "angel  of  God"  is  referred  to.  Two  of  the 
three  supernatural  visitors  who  appeared  to  Abraham  by 
the  oaks  of  Mamre  are  spoken  of  as  "angels"  ;^®  Jacob  in 
his  dream  at  Bethel  saw  "the  angels  of  God  ascending 
and  descending ;"  ^^  and  on  his  return  from  Paddan- 
aram  "the  angels  of  God,"  we  read,  met  him  at  the  place 
which  from  this  incident  was  called  Mahanaim-^*^  In 
even  these  instances  it  has  been  contended  that  we  simply 
have  manifestations  of  the  one  God  in  a  plurality  of 
forms.  But  this  view  is  forced  and  unnatural.  The 
"angels"  here  spoken  of  were  manifestly  thought  of  as 
distinct  beings.  There  are  also  a  number  of  cases  in 
which  the  singular  malak  is  used  in  a  way  that  suggests 
that  one  of  a  class  is  meant.^^  And  in  each  of  these  cases 
"the  angel  of  God"  is  referred  to  in  a  way  that  reminds 
one  of  the  Elohim  in  Gen.  3.  22  and  Psa.  8.  5.  Both  are 
represented  as  superhuman  beings  and  as  having  the 
power  to  discern  good  and  evil.  This  seems  to  imply  that 
the  malakim  were  identical  with  the  sons  of  Elohim. 

Furthermore,  it  should  be  noted  that  there  are  a  num- 
ber of  passages  in  which  the  "angel  of  Yahweh"  is  clearly 
differentiated  from  Yahweh.^^    j^g  effort  has  been  made 


"Judg.  6.  21-24;  13-  20-22;  Gen.  16.  8-13,  J;  21.  17-19;  48.  15-16, 
E;  Exod.  3.  2-4,  J. 

"Gen.  19.  I,  15,  J. 

"  Gen.  28.  12,  E. 

^"Gen.  32.  I,  E. 

"  I  Sam.  29.  9;  2  Sam.  14.  17;  19.  27. 

''Gen.  24.  7,  40,  J;  Exod.  2^.  20,  E;  2>2-  2;  Num.  20.  i6,  E;  2 
Sam.  24.  16. 

199 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

to  harmonize  these  passages  with  those  above  cited  on  the 
ground  that  "the  mere  manifestation  of  Yahweh  creates 
a  distinction  between  it  and  Yahweh,  though  the  identity 
remains."  ^^  But  it  is  more  natural  to  see  in  the  two 
groups  of  passages  two  variant  views.  According  to 
one,  the  angel  of  Yahweh  was  simply  Yahweh  in  mani- 
festation ;  according  to  the  other,  he  was  a  distinct  being. 
The  latter  conception  may  perhaps  have  originated  as  a 
means  of  mediating  between  the  belief  that  Yahweh  dwelt 
at  Sinai  and  the  belief  that  he  was  present  with  his  people 
wherever  they  might  be.  In  any  case  we  have  here  an 
angelic  being  distinct  from  Yahweh.  This  being  has 
been  identified  with  the  Logos  of  Christian  theology. 
And  in  so  far  as  the  angel  of  Yahweh  was  identical  with 
Yahweh  and  yet  distinct  from  him,  we  have  in  this  con- 
ception a  rather  remarkable  anticipation  of  the  Christian 
doctrine  of  the  Son.  The  outstanding  difference  between 
the  two  conceptions  is  that  in  the  angel  of  Yahweh  "the 
self-revealing  life  of  God  is  not  yet  human,  nor  does  it 
exist  as  a  permanent  personal  life."  ^* 

It  is  then  an  exaggeration  to  say  that  the  word  malak 
during  the  preexilic  period  was  used  only  of  appearances 
of  Yahweh  and  that  Yahweh  during  this  period  stood  in 
such  an  intimate  relation  to  men  that  there  was  no  room 
for  mediators  between  him  and  them.  The  very  tend- 
ency to  localize  Yahweh  at  Sinai  and  Jerusalem  would 
naturally  suggest  to  the  popular  imagination  the  need  of 
"messengers"  to  reveal  his  presence  and  convey  his  word 
to  people  separated  from  these  sacred  places.     It  is  true 


"^A.  B.  Davidson,  in  Hastings'  Dictionary  of  the  Bible,  vol.  i, 
p.  99. 

'*  Schultz,  Old  Testament  Theology,  vol.  ii,  p.  223. 

200 


ANGELS  AND  OTHER  DIVINE  BEINGS 

that  Yahweh  communicated  his  word  directly  to  the  pre- 
exilic  prophets.  No  use  was  made  of  angeHc  mediators. 
But  it  is  also  clear  that  such  "messengers"  were  known  to 
the  people.  Only  exegetical  violence  can  remove  the  evi- 
dence of  it  from  the  text.  On  the  other  hand,  it  cannot 
be  denied  that  beginning  with  the  exile  we  have  a  marked 
development  of  Hebrew  angelology.  This  development 
was  due  to  various  causes,  partly  perhaps  Babylonian  and 
Persian  influences,  but  especially  the  increasing  stress  on 
the  supremacy  and  transcendence  of  Yahweh.  The  divine 
transcendence  did  not  simply  carry  with  it  the  thought 
that  God  was  so  far  removed  from  terrestrial  life  that  he 
stood  in  need  of  intermediate  agencies ;  it  augmented  the 
sense  of  his  greatness  and  so  created  the  feeling  that  it 
was  unworthy  of  his  august  Being  to  be  concerned  with 
the  details  and  menial  tasks  of  life. 

A.  B.  Davidson  has  argued  that  what  we  have  at  the 
time  of  the  exile  and  after  the  return  is  not  "a  develop- 
ment in  angelology,"  but,  rather,  "a.  movement  in  the 
direction  of  hypostatizing  the  Spirit  of  God."  The 
angelic  beings  in  Ezekiel  and  Zechariah  were  simply  sym- 
bols of  the  Divine  Spirit  "objectivized."  And  the  later 
idea,  we  are  told,  of  patron  and  ruling  angels,  such  as  we 
find  in  Daniel,  was  due  among  other  causes  to  "a  tend- 
ency to  personify  abstract  conceptions  such  as  the  spirit  of 
a  nation,  and  a  further  tendency  to  locate  these  personified 
forces  in  the  supersensible  world,  from  whence  they  ruled 
the  destinies  of  men.  "^^  This  view  no  doubt  contains 
some  truth.  The  personifying  tendency  of  the  Jewish 
mind  during  the  exilic  and  postexilic  period  was  probably 
an  important  cooperant  factor  in  the  development  of  the 
belief   in   subordinate  superhuman   beings.     But  angels 

^°  Hastings*  Dictionary  of  the  Bible,  vol.  i,  pp.  gsi. 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

thus  "born"  were  no  less  angels  than  similar  beings 
handed  down  from  tradition  or  borrowed  from  neighbor- 
ing peoples.  Exilic  and  postexilic  angelology,  even  if  it 
had  its  chief  source  in  the  personification  of  the  Divine 
Spirit,  was  on  that  account  none  the  less  angelology. 

Three  lines  of  development  may  be  observed  in  the 
history  of  later  Old  Testament  angelology.  First,  angels 
came  to  be  regarded  as  mediators  of  the  prophetic  word 
and  intercessors  with  God.  The  earlier  prophets  had 
received  all  their  messages  direct  from  God.  Ezekiel  was 
the  first  to  whom  God  spoke  indirectly  through  an  angel^^ 
as  well  as  directly. ^^  To  Zechariah  the  divine  instruc- 
tions all  came  indirectly  through  angels.^^  And  Daniel 
received  in  the  same  way  the  explanation  of  his  visions. ^^ 
The  idea  of  an  angelic  intercessor  appears  first  in  Zecha- 
riah.^^ A  somewhat  similar  conception  is  found  also  in 
Daniel.  Michael  is  there  represented  as  the  guardian 
angel  of  Israel.  He  is  "the  great  prince  who  standeth  for 
the  children  of  thy  people."  ^^  But  elsewhere  in  the  Old 
Testament  there  is  no  reference  to  the  angels  as  inter- 
cessors.^^ It  was  in  the  extracanonical  apocalyptic  liter- 
ature and  in  the  later  practice  of  the  Christian  Church 
that  the  idea  came  to  its  fullest  development. 

In  the  second  place  angels  tended  during  the  postexilic 
period  to  become  distinct  personalities.  In  earlier  times 
function  had  completely  predominated  over  personality. 

**  Ezek.  40.  3  ;  43.  6. 

"44.2. 

='1.  8fT.;  2.  iff.;  3.  iff.;  4.  iff.;  5.  5ff. ;  6.  4ff. 
-"4.  13,  23;  7.  16;  8.  i3ff. ;  9.  21  ff.;  10.  5ff.,  isff. ;  12.  5ff. 
""  I.  12. 
"  12.  I. 

'^  Job  5.  I  and  33.  23  are  often  cited  as  expressions  of  the  idea  of 
angelic  intercession,  but  erroneously. 

202 


ANGELS  AND  OTHER  DIVINE  BEINGS 

The  angels  had  no  names,  no  distinctive  individuaHty.^^ 
They  were  simply  members  of  a  class.  Even  the  angel 
of  Yahweh  seems  at  times  not  to  have  been  distinguished 
from  other  angels.^'*  But  when  we  come  to  Zechariah, 
this  indefiniteness  has  apparently  been  overcome.  The 
angel  of  Yahweh  here  designates  a  particular  angel.^^ 
And  in  Daniel  there  are  two  angels  that  bear  personal 
names,  GabrieP^  and  Michael. ^^  Michael  was  the 
guardian  of  Judah,  and  Gabriel  brought  the  word  of 
Yahweh  to  the  prophet.  In  the  Apocryphal  literature 
two  other  names  are  added.  We  read  in  the  Book  of 
Tobit^^  of  an  angel  by  the  name  of  Raphael,  "one  of  the 
seven  holy  angels,"  and  in  Enoch^^  and  2  Esdras  5.  20 
there  is  mention  of  an  angel  by  the  name  of  Uriel. 

The  third  line  of  development  in  postexilic  angelology 
was  the  creation  of  different  ranks  or  orders  of  angels. 
This  idea  was  implicit  in  the  earlier  conception  of  the 
angels  as  a  host  or  army.  We  read,  for  instance,  in 
Joshua  5.  I3ff.  of  "the  prince  of  the  Lord's  host,"  an 
angelic  being  who  was  evidently  thought  of  as  the  leader 
of  the  heavenly  host.  But  the  idea  of  an  organized  body 
of  angels  was  not  carried  any  further  in  the  earlier  liter- 
ature. In  Enoch^°  the  cherubim  and  seraphim  are  re- 
garded as  different  orders  of  angels,  but  this  view  is  no- 
where expressed  in  the  Old  Testament.  In  the  ninth 
chapter  of  Ezekiel  seven  angels  of  judgment  are  referred 

^^Gen.  32.  29,  J. 

"  I  Kings  19.  5,  7 ;  2  Sam.  24.  16. 

^=1.  iif.;3.  i,5ff. 

"^8.  I5ff. 

^^  10.  13,  21 ;  12.  I. 

^'  12.  15. 

^°  9.  I,  etc. 

*»6i.  10. 

203 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

to,  but  that  they  had  any  connection  with  the  later  doc- 
trine of  seven  angels^^  or  with  the  seven  great  spirits  of 
Persian  mythology  is  doubtful.  In  Zechariah,  however, 
there  are  clear  indications  of  differences  of  rank.  The 
Angel  of  Yahweh  is  here  a  judge  before  whom  other 
angels  stand  as  servants,^^  and  "the  angel  that  talked  with 
me" — the  Interpreting  Angel — received  his  instructions, 
in  one  instance  at  least,  not  directly  from  Yahweh,  but 
from  another  angel. '*^  In  Daniel  these  distinctions  in 
rank  are  still  more  marked.  Here  we  read  of  angelic 
"princes,"  and  "chief"  or  "great  princes."  ^*  And  in  the 
subsequent  apocalyptic  literature  we  find  an  elaborate 
hierarchy  of  angelic  beings,  "mighty  regencies  of 
seraphim,  and  potentates,  and  thrones."  "The  imagina- 
tion ran  riot  on  the  rank,  classes,  and  names  of  angels."  ^^ 
But  along  with  this  increasing  interest  in  angelology  in 
postexilic  Judaism  there  went  also  a  counter  tendency. 
The  great  Priestly  Code  makes  no  direct  mention  of 
angels,  and  the  priestly  Chronicler  does  so  only  seldom. 
This  is  also  true  of  such  Apocryphal  books  as  Ecclesias- 
ticus.  Wisdom,  and  Maccabees.  In  New  Testament  times 
this  tendency  was  represented  by  the  Sadducees.^*^  It 
may  have  been  their  belief  that  the  Law  was  the  com- 
plete expression  of  the  divine  will,  and  that  with  it  in 
their  possession  there  was  no  need  of  mediating  angels. 
More  likely,  however,  their  attitude  on  this  point  was  due 
to  rationalistic  skepticism.  The  earnest  people  of  the 
day  took  seriously  the  belief  in  angels,  and  accepted  the 

"  Tobit  12.  15 ;  Rev.  8.  2. 
"3.1,4. 

**2.  3-4. 

"  10.   13,  20;   12.   I. 

"  W.  H.  Bennett  in  Encyclapcedia  Britannica,  vol.  ii,  p.  5. 
"  Acts  23.  8. 

204 


ANGELS  AND  OTHER  DIVINE  BEINGS 

fact  of  their  existence  as  unquestioningly  as  they  did  that 
of  God  himself. 

The  angels,  according  to  Old  Testament  teaching,  be- 
longed to  the  Elohim  world,  and  as  a  result  shared  to 
some  extent  in  the  qualities  of  the  divine  nature.  They 
were  "holy"  in  the  ancient  sense  of  the  term.  They  were 
possessed  of  supernatural  knowledge.*"^  They  existed  be- 
fore the  creation  of  the  world.^^  Whether  they  were 
themselves  thought  of  as  having  been  created  is  a  ques- 
tion. In  earlier  times  they  probably  were  not,  but  in  such 
late  passages  as  Psa.  148.  2-5  and  Neh.  9.  6  they  seem  to 
be  included  in  the  list  of  created  objects.  They  were  re- 
garded apparently  as  sustaining  a  close  relation  to  the 
stars.^^  Even  so  early  a  passage  as  the  Song  of  Deborah 
seems  to  refer  to  this  relation.^*^  In  their  essential  nature 
the  angels  were  looked  upon  as  spirits, ^^  though  they  are 
nowhere  in  the  Old  Testament  declared  to  be  such.^^ 
Though  invisible  to  ordinary  sight,  they  revealed  them- 
selves to  the  divinely  opened  eyes  of  the  servant  of  the 
prophet  as  "horses  and  chariots  of  fire."  ^^  By  this  it  was 
meant  that  they  shared  in  the  ethereal  and  luminous  sub- 
stance of  the  heavenly  beings.  At  times  they  are  rep- 
resented as  eating  and  drinking  and  walking  like  men,^* 
but  at  other  times  they  appear  as  quite  superior  to  hu- 
man needs. ^^    And  the  general  view  was  that  they  were 

*'  2  Sam.  14.  17;  compare  Gen.  3.  22. 

**Job.  38.  6f. 

*"  Job  38.  7;  Deut.  4.  19;  Isa.  24.  21. 

^"Judg.  5.  20. 

^'  I  Kings  22.  21. 

"Compare  Heb.  i.  14. 

"2  Kings  6.  17;  compare  Num.  22.  23-27, 

"'Gen.  18.  8;  19.  16,  J. 

^  Judg.  6.  i9ff. ;  13.  i6ff. 

205 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

exempt  from  the  common  burdens  and  limitations  of 
human  hfe.  They  might  appear  and  disappear  at  will, 
unhampered  by  the  ordinary  laws  of  earthly  existence. 
When  angels  appeared  to  men,  it  was  usually  in  hu- 
man form.  Indeed,  they  are  frequently  spoken  of  as 
"men."  ^^  This,  however,  does  not  mean  that  they  were 
thought  of  as  permanently  having  the  human  form. 
What  form  or  shape  they  may  have  had  when  withdrawn 
from  human  sight  is  not  clear.  If  the  seraphim  of 
Isaiah's  vision  were  representative  of  angelic  beings  as 
they  appear  in  the  heavenly  temple,  we  might  conclude 
that  angels  in  their  celestial  abode  were  composite  beings. 
But  there  is  no  indication  anywhere  that  the  seraphim 
ever  assumed  the  common  human  form,  or  that  angels 
after  manifesting  themselves  to  men  reverted  to  the  form 
of  seraphim.  Indeed,  it  is  a  question  whether  the  sera- 
phim may  be  regarded  as  angels  at  all.  In  the  broader 
sense  of  the  term  they  no  doubt  were.  They  were  sub- 
ordinate supernatural  beings  and  ministering  servants  of 
Yahweh,  But  if  we  take  the  description  of  angels  else- 
where found  in  the  Old  Testament  as  typical  of  the  class, 
it  is  evident  that  the  seraphim  belonged  to  a  different 
order  of  beings.  It  is  not  certain  whether  Isaiah  meant 
to  represent  them  as  having  a  human  body  or  not,  but 
in  any  case  their  posession  of  wings  gave  to  them  an 
essentially  different  appearance  from  that  of  the  angels 
elsewhere  spoken  of.  ''Angels  have  no  wings  in  the  Old 
Testament."  ^'^  In  Jacob's  dream  they  do  not  fly  between 
heaven  and  earth,  but  ascend  and  descend  by  means  of  a 
ladder.     The  idea  of  winged  angels  belongs  to  a  later 

'°  Gen.  i8.  2,  16,  22;  32.  24,  J ;  Josh.  5.  13 ;  Ezek.  9.  2,  3,  11 ;  43.  6 ; 
Dan.  3.  25 ;  9.  21 ;  10.  16,  18. 

"  H.  G.  Mitchell,  Isaiah,  a  Study  of  Chapters  I-XII,  p.  162. 

206 


ANGELS  AND  OTHER  DIVINE  BEINGS 

date.  They  are  first  mentioned  in  Enoch  6i.  I.  If  re- 
ferred to  anywhere  in  the  Old  Testament,  it  is  only  in 
such  late  passages  as  i  Chron.  21.  1 6  and  Dan.  9.  21,  and 
even  there  only  by  implication,  if  at  all. 

Closely  related  to  the  seraphim  were  the  cherubim. 
The  cherubim  are  mentioned  in  several  different  connec- 
tions in  the  Old  Testament.  They  appear  in  the  story 
of  paradise  as  guardians  of  the  tree  of  life;^^  they  figure 
prominently  in  Hebrew  art,  in  the  adornments  of  the 
ark,  the  tabernacle  and  the  temple  ;^^  they  are  identified 
with  the  four  living  creatures  in  the  vision  of  Ezekiel 
who  support  the  throne  of  Yahweh;®"  they  serve  in  He- 
brew poetry  as  symbols  of  the  storm-clouds.^^  The  de- 
scriptions of  their  appearance  differ  somewhat.  In 
Ezekiel  10  they  each  have  four  faces,  but  in  Ezek.  41.  i8f. 
only  two,  and  from  what  is  said  of  them  in  connection 
with  the  ark  one  would  naturally  suppose  that  they  each 
had  only  one  face.  Whether  this  was  the  face  of  a  man 
or  an  ox  is  uncertain.  The  diversity  of  representation 
was  due  to  the  fact  that  the  cherubim  were  products  of 
the  imagination  and  hence  had  no  fixed  form,  though  they 
do  regularly  appear  as  winged  beings.  In  the  latter  re- 
gard they  resemble  the  seraphim,  and  in  later  times  the 
two  were  identified.^^^  jj-j  jj^g  Qld  Testament,  however, 
the  two  are  clearly  distinguished.  "The  cherubim  carry 
or  veil  God,  and  show  the  presence  of  his  glory  in  the 
earthly  sanctuary.  But  the  seraphim  stand  before  God 
as   ministering  servants   in   his   heavenly   sanctuary."  ^^ 

''  Gen.  3.  24,  J. 

'"Exod.  25.  i8ff.;  26.  I.  31,  P;  I  Kings  6.  23;  8.  6f. 
'"10.  20;  I.  5ff. 
"  Psa.  18.  10. 
'-  Rev.  4.  8. 

°^H.  Schultz,  Old  Testament  Theology,  vol.  ii,  pp.  238f. 

207 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

Both  classes  of  beings  were  angels  in  the  broader  sense  of 
the  term,  but  both  differed  in  appearance  and  to  some  ex- 
tent in  function  from  the  malakim. 

Angels,  according  to  Old  Testament  teaching,  served 
various  purposes.  They  formed  a  divine  court  or  council 
or  army,^^  and  thus  contributed  to  the  conception  of  the 
divine  majesty.  They  acted  as  ministers  of  the  divine 
wrath,  destroying  those  who  disobeyed  or  defied  the  di- 
vine will.^''  They  interpreted  the  divine  visions  to  the 
later  prophets,^^  and  explained  to  men  the  divine  purpose 
in  their  afflictions.^'^  But  in  particular  they  served  as 
mediators  of  the  divine  care  and  favor. 

"He  will  give  his  angels  charge  over  thee, 
To  keep  thee  in  all  thy  ways. 
They  shall  bear  thee  up  in  their  hands. 
Lest  thou  dash  thy  foot  against  a  stone."  ®^ 

It  is  here  that  the  real  religious  significance  of  the  belief 
in  angels  is  to  be  found.  Belief  in  them  gave  "visibility 
to  the  working  of  God  in  Providence."  It  made  objec- 
tive, concrete,  and  special  the  divine  care  and  supervision 
of  human  life.  It  embodied  in  a  form  that  the  imagina- 
tion could  readily  grasp  the  thought  of  the  divine  guid- 
ance and  the  divine  favor. 

Thus  far  we  have  said  nothing  of  the  moral  character 
of  the  angels.  In  a  certain  sense  they  had  none.  They 
were  merely  servants  of  Yahweh.    Apart  from  him  they 

"Isa.  6.  8;  I  Kings  22.  19;  Job  i.  6;  2.  i ;  Psa.  89.  5,  7;  103.  20-22. 
"Gen.  19.  13;  2  Sam.  24.  16;  2  Kings  19.  35;  Ezek.  9.  iff.;  Psa. 
78.  49. 

'*  Ezek.  40.  3;  Zech.  i.  9;  Dan.  7.  16. 
•"•"Job  33.  23. 
"Psa.  91.  I  if. 

208 


ANGELS  AND  OTHER  DIVINE  BEINGS 

had  no  will  and  no  purpose.  They  simply  did  his  bid- 
ding. Even  the  angels  or  spirits  that  are  spoken  of  as 
"evil"  or  are  represented  as  doers  of  evil,^^  were  not 
evil  in  and  of  themselves.  They  did  evil  only  in  the  sense 
that  Yahweh  himself  did,"''  and  only  in  fulfillment  of  his 
will.  Their  own  character  did  not  come  into  the  question. 
They  were  not  in  the  proper  sense  of  the  term  morally 
responsible  agents.  Such  at  least  seems  to  have  been  the 
view  of  earlier  times.  And  yet  the  tendency  must  early 
have  arisen  to  think  of  angels  as  superior  to  men  ethi- 
cally as  well  as  otherwise. "^^  Such  is  manifestly  the  view 
of  Job.    Here  we  read, 

"Behold,  he  putteth  no  trust  in  his  servants ; 
And  his  angels  he  chargeth  with  folly: 
How  much  more  them  that  dwell  in  houses  of  clay !"  "^^ 

As  compared  with  God  angels  were  imperfect,  but  as 
compared  with  men  they  were  the  purest  of  beings. 

The  idea  of  fallen  angels  is  nowhere  expressed  in  the 
Old  Testament.  It  was  first  taught  in  the  Book  of 
Enoch.'''^  A  certain  basis  for  it,  however,  or  at  least  for 
the  belief  in  the  existence  of  supernatural  beings  of  an 
evil  character,  is  found  in  the  Old  Testament.  We  have 
there  the  idea  of  demons,  beings  hostile  to  Yahweh  or  in- 
dependent of  him.  These  beings  no  doubt  figured  promi- 
nently in  the  popular  religion,^'*  but  only  one  of  them 

'"Judg.  g.  23;  I  Sam.  16.  14-23;  2  Sam.  24.  16;  i  Kings  22.  19-23; 
2  Kings  19.  35 ;  Psa.  78.  49 ;  Job  33.  22. 

'°  Ezek.  14.  9;  Amos  3.  6;  Isa.  45.  7. 

^'  I  Sam.  29.  9. 

"  Job  4.  i8f. ;  see  also  15.  isf. ;  25.  5f. 

"6-15;  see  Jude  6  and  2  Pet.  2.  4. 

^'Deut.  32.  17;  Psa.  106.  37;  Lev.  17.  7;  2  Chron.  11.  15;  2  Kings 
23.  8;  Isa.  13.  21;  34.  14.  See  Hebrew  and  English  Lexicon  of  the 
Old  Testament,  by  Brown,  Driver,  Briggs,  p.  972. 

209 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

received  recognition  in  the  Old  Testament  cultus.  This 
was  AzazelJ^  who  plays  a  great  role  in  the  Book  of 
Enoch.'^^  He  there  appears  as  a  leader  of  the  evil  spirits, 
a  temporary  rival  of  Satan,  who  because  of  his  wickedness 
is  bound  hand  and  foot  and  held  in  the  desert  "under 
rough  and  jagged  rocks"  to  await  the  fire  of  the  great 
Day  of  Judgment.  In  Leviticus  he  is  apparently  thought 
of  as  a  wilderness  demon,  a  satyr  or  goatlike  figure.  To 
him  the  sins  of  the  people  laden  on  a  goat  were  sent  on 
the  Day  of  Atonement.  This  ceremonial  was  a  symbol- 
ical declaration  that  the  land  and  the  people  had  been 
purged  of  their  guilt. 

But  besides  the  demons  there  were  other  superhuman 
beings  who  stood  apart  from  Yahweh  and  were  to 
some  extent  hostile  to  him.  In  Gen.  6.  1-4,  as  already 
pointed  out,  reference  is  made  to  certain  "sons  of  God," 
who  dealt  in  a  high-handed  way  with  the  daughters  of 
men.  In  Isa.  24.  21-22  we  are  told  of  supernatural  be- 
ings, "the  host  of  the  high  ones  on  high,"  who  were  im- 
prisoned as  a  punishment  for  intruding  on  the  sovereign 
rights  of  Yahweh.  And  in  Daniel  the  princes  or  guardian 
angels  of  Persia  and  Greece  appear  as  opponents  of 
Michael  and  another  celestial  visitant,  who  manifestly 
represent  the  divine  will."'^ 

More  important,  however,  than  any  of  these  is  the 
figure  of  Satan.  The  Hebrew  word  satan  had  the  gen- 
eral meaning  of  "adversary,"  and  in  the  earlier  literature 
was  used  exclusively  in  that  sense.  "The  angel  of  Je- 
hovah  placed    himself    in    the    way    for   an   adversary 

"  Lev.  16. 

"8-10. 

"  10.  13,  20, 

210 


ANGELS  AND  OTHER  DIVINE  BEINGS 

against"  Balaam.'^^  "Jehovah  raised  up  an  adversary 
unto  Solomon,  Hadad  the  Edomite."  '^^  The  word  is  also 
used  as  a  verb,  "to  be  or  act  as  an  adversary,"  ^^  Not 
until  we  come  to  Zechariah  (B.  C.  520)  was  it  applied  to 
a  particular  personage.  And  here  it  is  not  used  as  a 
proper  name.  The  being  to  whom  it  is  applied  is  called 
not  Satan  but  the  Satan,  or  Adversary.^  ^  The  Adversary, 
it  is  said,  was  standing  at  the  side  of  Joshua  the  high 
priest  "to  be  his  adversary."  The  word  satan  is  here 
used  both  as  a  noun  and  a  verb.  The  particular  function 
of  the  Satan  in  this  connection  was  to  represent  "the  jus- 
tice of  Yahweh  as  contrasted  with  his  mercy."  He  was  a 
kind  of  advocatus  diaboli  whose  task  it  was  "not  to  prove 
so  much  as  to  recall  the  iniquity  of"  Joshua,  the  repre- 
sentative of  Judah,  "and  insist  upon  the  infliction  of  the 
appropriate  penalty."  ^^  The  rebuke  administered  to  the 
Adversary  in  verse  2  is  evidence  that  Yahweh  did  not 
approve  of  the  hardness  and  lack  of  compassion  that  he 
was  showing  in  the  performance  of  his  office.  A  certain 
tendency  to  evil  is  thus  observable  in  Zechariah's  concep- 
tion of  the  Satan,  but  the  Satan  is  not  yet  conceived  of  as 
hostile  to  Yahweh.  He  is,  rather,  a  minister  of  Yahweh. 
This  is  clearly  the  view  of  the  book  of  Job  (about  B.  C. 
350).  The  Satan  is  here  one  of  the  sons  of  God.^^  But 
the  work  in  which  he  is  engaged  is  even  more  distinctly 
evil  than  that  attributed  to  him  in  Zechariah.  He  is 
skeptical  of  human  nature,  takes  a  low  view  of  it.    Every 

"  Num.  22.  22,  32,  J. 

"  I  Kings  II.  14;  compare  5.  4;  i  Sam.  29.  4;  2  Sam.  19.  22. 
^Tsa.  38.  20;  109.  4. 
"3.  1-5. 

*^  H.  G.  Mitchell,  "Zechariah"  in  International  Critical  Commen- 
tary, p.  151. 

*^i.  6-12;  2.  I-IO. 

211 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

man,  he  believes,  has  his  price.^^  And  this  view  he  is 
bent  on  confirming.  He  pursues  Job  relentlessly,  doing 
everything  in  his  power  to  break  the  bond  of  faith  be- 
tween him  and  God.  He  acts  the  part  of  a  real  tempter, 
and  that  without  any  good  motive.  He  is  Job's  enemy, 
seeking  to  drive  him  to  despair.  In  all  this,  it  is  true, 
he  acts  on  his  own  initiative,  differing  in  this  regard  from 
the  nameless  spirit  who  was  sent  to  deceive  Ahab.^^  But 
he  is  still  a  minister  of  God,  operating  under  the  divine 
permission,  and  not  an  independent  principle  of  evil. 

In  I  Chron.  21.  i,  written  perhaps  about  B.  C.  250, 
Satan  first  appears  as  a  proper  name.  His  personality  is 
here  distinctly  recognized.  In  2  Sam.  24.  i  Yahweh  is 
said  to  have  incited  David  to  an  act  of  disobedience, 
namely,  that  of  numbering  the  people.  But  in  Chron- 
icles this  temptation  is  attributed  to  Satan.  "Between 
the  two  statements  (an  interval  of  probably  two  or  three 
hundred  years)  the  feeling  had  grown  up  that  instigation 
to  evil  could  not  properly  be  referred  to  God ;  an  evil  spirit 
becomes  the  agent  of  sin."  ^®  The  serpent  of  Genesis  3 
was  first  interpreted  as  meaning  Satan  in  the  Wisdom  of 
Solomon  (2.  23),  a  book  dating  from  about  B.  C.  100. 
This  interpretation  carried  with  it  the  idea  that  sin  and 
death  were  introduced  into  the  world  through  satanic 
agency.  And  with  this  idea  went  naturally  a  marked  de- 
velopment of  demonology.  Satan  appears  in  the  Jewish 
literature  of  the  New  Testament  period  and  to  some  ex- 
tent in  the  New  Testament  itself  as  the  chief  personifica- 
tion of  evil,  as  the  leader  of  the  hosts  of  darkness  and  as 
prince  of  this  world.    This  development  was  probably  due 

-2.4. 

*^  I  Kings  22.  19-23. 

'°  C.  H.  Toy,  Judaism  and  Christianity,  p.  157. 

212 


ANGELS  AND  OTHER  DIVINE  BEINGS 

in  part  to  foreign  influence,  to  the  dualism  of  Persian 
and  Greek  thought,  but  it  was  also  due  to  the  growing 
moral  refinement  of  the  idea  of  God.  It  was  increasingly 
believed  that  God  was  essentially  benevolent  in  his  nature 
and  that  he  could  not,  therefore,  be  responsible  for  all  the 
evil  of  the  world.  Faith  consequently  felt  a  certain  re- 
lief in  turning  over  the  ills  and  wickedness  of  life  to  a 
being  hostile  to  him. 

But  neither  the  conception  of  Satan  nor  that  of  angels 
formed  an  essential  part  of  biblical  teaching.  They  were 
natural  and  perhaps  inevitable  accompaniments  of  the  de- 
veloping faith  in  the  divine  goodness  and  transcendence. 
But  they  constituted  no  necessary  part  of  this  faith. 
They  owed  their  origin  and  growth  in  large  part  to  condi- 
tions of  life  and  thought  that  have  now  ceased  to  be 
operative.  At  the  best  they  were  simply  adjuncts  to  the 
idea  of  God  and  derived  whatever  value  they  possessed 
from  the  help  they  rendered  the  imagination  in  conceiv- 
ing aright  the  thought  of  God. 


213 


Ill 

MAN  AND  REDEMPTION 


CHAPTER  X 

THE  NATURE  OF  MAN 

Religion  centers  in  the  thought  of  God,  but  the 
thought  of  God  becomes  a  source  of  inspiration  only  in 
so  far  as  it  elevates  the  conception  of  man.  The  concep- 
tion of  man  is  therefore  second  in  importance  only  to  that 
of  God.  The  value  of  any  religion  and  of  any  system 
of  philosophy  may  be  tested  by  its  teaching  on  these  tw^o 
points. 

As  regards  the  idea  of  God  the  Old  Testament,  as  v^^e 
have  seen,  is  reasonably  clear  and  satisfactory.  The 
development  through  which  the  Hebrews  passed  before 
they  arrived  at  a  complete  monotheism  may  be  some- 
what obscure  and  a  subject  of  dispute.  But  the  ideas 
concerning  the  divine  unity,  spirituality,  and  righteous- 
ness ultimately  attained  and  reflected  in  the  larger  part  of 
the  Old  Testament  are  on  the  whole  such  as  to  commend 
themselves  to  modern  religious  thought.  The  situation, 
however,  with  reference  to  the  conception  of  man  is  less 
satisfactory.  Anthropology  lagged  far  behind  theology, 
and  not  until  the  very  close  of  the  Old  Testament  period 
did  a  conception  of  man  begin  to  arise  that  satisfies  the 
developed  religious  consciousness.  Much  of  what  we  find 
in  the  Old  Testament  concerning  the  nature  of  man  is 
consequently  of  an  imperfect  and  sub-Christian  character. 

There  are  three  beliefs  with  reference  to  man  in  which 
religion  is  especially  interested.  These  are  his  spirituality, 
freedom,  and  immortality.    The  last  is  of  such  import- 

217 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

ance  that  its  discussion  is  reserved  for  a  separate  chapter. 
Here  we  shall  consider  the  teaching  of  the  Old  Testament 
in  so  far  as  it  bears  upon  the  first  two. 

"Spirituality,"  as  we  have  seen,  is  a  term  that  has  vari- 
ous meanings.  As  applied  to  God  there  are  three  that 
may  be  distinguished :  the  metaphysical,  dynamic  and  eth- 
ical. These  three  meanings  appear  also  in  our  conception 
of  human  spirituality.  Man  is  spiritual  in  the  sense  that 
he  has  a  soul,  a  nonfleshly  nature;  he  may  also  be  said 
to  be  spiritual  in  so  far  as  there  is  within  him  a  vital 
power  that  enables  him  to  rise  above  the  weakness  of  the 
flesh;  he  is  still  further  spiritual  in  so  far  as  he  is  guided 
in  his  conduct  by  ethical  and  religious  considerations 
rather  than  by  his  selfish  and  fleshly  nature.  It  is  in  the 
last  sense  that  spirituality  is  commonly  used  when  ap- 
plied to  man.  But  the  other  two  uses  of  the  term  are 
important,  and  religion  is  interested  in  the  spirituality  of 
man  in  all  three  senses.  It  is  interested  in  the  ethical,  but 
it  is  also  interested  in  those  other  qualities  that  lift  man 
above  the  plane  of  the  sense-life  with  its  weakness  and 
inevitable  decay,  and  link  him  with  the  divine.  What 
religion  seeks  to  find  in  man  is  something  permanent  and 
abiding,  something  that  elevates  him  above  the  world  of 
change  and  makes  him  share  in  the  life  of  God.  It  conse- 
quently turns  away  from  the  things  of  sense  and  fixes 
its  thought  upon  the  soul,  the  inner  life  of  man  that  stands 
nearest  to  the  divine.  But  it  is  only  gradually  that  the 
immanent  logic  of  religion  works  itself  out  into  satis- 
factory concepts.  And  the  question  with  which  we  are  at 
present  concerned  is  as  to  how  far  this  was  accomplished 
in  the  Old  Testament.  In  what  sense  and  to  what  extent 
did  the  Old  Testament  teach  the  spirituality  of  man? 

In  answering  this  question  we  are  first  confronted  with 

2l8 


THE  NATURE  OF  MAN 

the  fact  that  the  Old  Testament  writers  had  no  distinctive 
psychology  and  no  distinctive  physiology.  Their  ideas  in 
these  fields  were  those  current  among  the  people  of  their 
own  day.  They  did  not  seek  to  introduce  a  new  theory 
of  the  constitution  of  human  nature,  nor  did  they  attempt 
to  deal  in  a  more  systematic  way  with  the  subject.  They 
simply  reflected  the  common  thought  of  the  day,  and  their 
language  was  that  of  the  people;  it  lacked  the  definiteness 
and  precision  of  a  scientific  treatise.  No  clearly  defined 
doctrine  of  man  is  consequently  to  be  found  in  the  Old 
Testament.  What  we  have,  for  the  most  part  at  least,  is 
the  popular  beliefs  and  the  popular  speech  of  the  day. 
But  in  these  there  is  a  considerable  uniformity,  so  that  it 
is  proper  to  speak  of  an  Old  Testament  teaching  con- 
cerning the  nature  of  man. 

There  are  four  terms  of  special  significance  in  what 
might  be  called  the  physio-psychology  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment. These  are  "flesh"  (basar),  "soul"  (nephesh), 
"spirit"  (ruach),  and  "heart"  (leb).  All  of  these  terms 
are  used  in  a  variety  of  senses.  Here  we  are  concerned 
with  them  simply  as  designations  of  component  elements 
in  human  nature.  The  physical  basis  of  life  was  ex- 
pressed by  the  term  basar.  The  Hebrews  had  no  word 
exactly  corresponding  to  the  Greek  soma  and  the  English 
"body,"  but  basar  was  often  used  in  an  equivalent  sense.^ 
The  basar,  or  body,  however,  as  conceived  by  the  He- 
brews, was  not  a  mere  material  mechanism.  It  was  a  pro- 
duct of  the  union  of  dead  inert  matter,  the  dust  from  the 
ground  (aphar),  with  the  live-giving  spirit  (neshamah  or 
ruach).    It  thus  had  a  double  character.    It  was  not  only 

^Exod.  30.  32;  Lev.  6.  10;  14.  9;  19.  28;  Num.  8.  7;  i  Kings 
21.  27;  Job  14.  22;  Psa.  16.  9;  63.1;  Eccl.  2.  3;  4.  5;  Isa.  10.  18. 

219 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

matter,  but,  as  Davidson  puts  it,  "ensouled  matter."  It 
had  a  vital  and  psychical  side  to  its  being  as  well  as  a 
physical.  It  was  represented  as  sinning,^  suffering,^ 
trembling  with  fear,*  living  trustfully,^  longing,®  sing- 
ing for  joyJ  In  a  similar  way  psychical  functions  were 
ascribed  to  the  individual  sense-organs.  The  eye  was 
spoken  of  as  unsatisfied,^  proud,*^  humble,^*^  evil;^^  the 
ear  as  seeking  knowledge^^  and  bestowing  blessing  ;^^  the 
tongue  as  framing  deceits  and  devising  mischiefs.^*  In 
such  expressions  as  these  it  might  at  first  be  thought  that 
the  language  was  purely  metaphorical.  But  when  we  take 
into  account  the  general  physiological  and  psychological 
notions  current  in  antiquity  this  is  seen  to  be  improbable. 
Frazer  tells  us  that  "the  savage  commonly  believes  that 
by  eating  the  flesh  of  an  animal  or  man  he  acquires  not 
only  the  physical,  but  even  the  moral  and  intellectual  qual- 
ities which  were  characteristic  of  that  animal  or  man."  ^^ 
And  among  ancient  peoples  generally  a  similar  idea  of  the 
close  connection  between  the  physical  and  psychical  seems 
to  have  prevailed.  We  localize  the  immediate  physical 
antecedents  of  sensation  in  the  brain.    But  the  Hebrews 


-  Eccl.  5.  6. 
'Eccl.  II.  10. 
*  Psa.  119.  120. 
=  Psa.  16.  9. 
•Psa.  63.  I. 
'  Psa.  84.  2. 

'Eccl.  I.  8;  Prov.  27.  20. 
•Psa.  131.  I. 
*°Job  22.  29. 
"  Prov.  23.  6. 
"  Prov.  18.  IS. 
"Job  29.  II. 
"Psa.  50.  19;  52.  2. 

'°  TA^  Colden  Bough  (second  edition),  vol.  ii,  p.  353. 

220 


THE  NATURE  OF  MAN 

had  no  knowledge  of  the  nervous  system.  They  had  no 
distinct  term  for  "nerve,"  and  the  word  "brain"  does  not 
occur  in  the  Old  Testament.  No  doubt  they  had  some 
way  of  designating  the  physical  substance  of  the  brain. 
Perhaps  they  spoke  of  it  as  "the  marrow  of  the  head." 
But  they  did  not  look  upon  it  as  the  center  of  conscious- 
ness. The  heart,  as  we  shall  see,  came  nearer  to  serving 
that  function  in  their  thought.  But  even  it  was  not  re- 
garded as  the  sole  organ  of  consciousness.  Conscious- 
ness was,  rather,  conceived  as  inherent  in  the  flesh  or  the 
blood,  and  hence  might  be  ascribed  to  the  individual  sense 
organs  or  to  the  body  as  a  whole. 

The  antithesis  between  soul  and  body  was  far  less 
marked  with  the  Hebrews  than  with  us.  The  distinction 
between  the  two  was  made,  but  the  tendency  was  to  view 
life  as  a  unity,  and  in  this  unity  the  body  rather  than  the 
soul  was  the  characteristic  element.  Hence  the  word 
"flesh"  was  used  to  designate  sensuous  creatures  gener- 
ally, men  as  well  as  animals.  "All  flesh,"  a  common  ex- 
pression especially  in  P,  meant  either  mankind,^®  or 
the  animal  world,^^  or  both.^^  The  essential  and  dis- 
tinctive element  in  human  nature  by  way  of  contrast  with 
the  divine  was  also  not  infrequently  expressed  by  the 
word  "flesh."  "The  Egyptians  are  men,  and  not  God; 
and  their  horses  flesh,  and  not  spirit."  ^^  Flesh  here  car- 
ries with  it  the  idea  of  weakness,  frailty,  and  depend- 
ence. It  is  this  that  characterizes  man  as  over  against 
God.    The  contrast  between  flesh  and  spirit  was  thus  not 

"Gen.  6.  12;  Num.  16,  22;  Deut.  5.  26;  Isa.  40.  6;  Jer.  12.  12; 
Ezek.  21.  4. 

"Gen.  7.  15,  16;  8.  17. 

"Gen.  6.  17;  7.  21;  9.  II ;  Lev.  17.  14;  Num.  18.  15;  Job  34.  15; 
Psa.  136.  25. 

'*  Isa.  31.  3- 

221 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

ethical.  Flesh  nowhere  in  the  Old  Testament  is  looked 
upon  as  evil  in  and  of  itself.  If  it  had  been,  it  would  not 
have  been  used  in  sacrifices  and  for  food,  nor  would  the 
word  "flesh"  have  been  employed  as  a  figure  to  denote 
tenderness  or  ethical  sensitiveness,  as  it  is  in  Ezek.  36.  26. 
Fleshly  weakness  might  lead  to  sin,  but  it  was  not  identi- 
fied with  it.  Rather  was  the  guilt  of  sin  extenuated  by 
the  fact  that  it  grew  out  of  sensuous  weakness.^"  Sensu- 
ous weakness  could  not  therefore  have  been  regarded  as 
itself  morally  evil.  If  it  had  been,  it  could  not  have 
served  as  an  excuse  for  or  palliation  of  sin.  The  idea  of 
an  ethical  dualism  of  body  and  soul  was  remote  from 
Hebrew  thought.  Yet  in  the  contrast  between  flesh  and 
spirit,  first  clearly  stated  by  Isaiah, ^^  we  have  the  begin- 
ning of  the  development  that  led  later  to  the  Pauline 
doctrine  of  the  flesh  with  its  distinct  ethical  implications. 

Closely  connected  with  the  "flesh,"  yet  clearly  distin- 
guished from  it,  was  the  soul,  or  ncphesh.  It  would  be  a 
mistake  to  read  our  modern  ideas  into  the  Hebrew  con- 
ception of  the  soul ;  yet  there  is  this  point  of  agreement 
between  the  modern  and  the  ancient  view,  that  the  soul  in 
both  represents  a  principle  distinct  from  the  flesh  or  body. 
The  Hebrew  ncphesh  might  originate  in  connection  with 
the  body  and  disappear  with  it,  yet  it  was  conceived  of  as 
a  distinct  substance  or  entity.  It  seems  to  have  been  the 
Hebrew  view  that,  as  the  body  was  the  product  of  the 
union  of  the  "dust"  with  the  life-giving  spirit,  and  hence 
might  be  spoken  of  as  "ensouled  matter,"  so  the  ncphesh, 
or  soul,  was  due  to  the  union  of  the  life-giving  spirit  with 
the  dust  or   flesh,   and  hence   might   be   called   "incar- 

""Job  4.  17-19;  14.  1-14;  Psa.  78.  38-39, 
"  Isa.  31.  3. 

222 


THE  NATURE  OF  MAN 

nate  spirit."  ^^  Flesh  and  soul  were  thus  intimately 
connected  with  each  other,  indeed,  mutually  dependent 
upon  one  another,  yet  they  rooted  in  different  principles, 
one  in  dust  or  matter,  the  other  in  breath  or  spirit. 

Spirit  as  conceived  by  the  Hebrews  was  not.  as  we  have 
seen,  an  immaterial  form  of  existence.  It  was,  rather,  a 
breathlike  substance,  a  rarified  form  of  matter.  Indeed, 
the  soul  was  identified  by  the  Hebrews  with  the  breath. 
The  reason  for  this  is  evident.  Breath  is  a  sign  of  life. 
When  breath  ceases  life  vanishes.  Hence  it  was  easy  to 
conclude  that  the  soul  or  principle  of  life  was  identical 
with  the  breath.  It  was  for  the  same  reason  also  that  the 
soul  was  brought  into  such  intimate  connection  with  the 
blood.  Loss  of  blood  after  a  certain  point  is  accompanied 
by  loss  of  consciousness  and  finally  of  life.  Hence  we 
read,  "The  life  [nephesh]  of  the  flesh  is  in  the  blood,"  ^^ 
and  again,  ''The  blood  is  the  life  [nephesh]."  ^^  A  still 
further  reason  for  the  identification  of  the  soul  with  the 
blood  may  perhaps  be  found  in  the  visible  reek  of  shed 
blood.  This  would  suggest  to  the  primitive  mind  that 
there  was  in  the  blood  a  breathlike  or  soullike  substance. 

The  quasi-physical  character  of  the  soul  and  its  close 
connection  with  the  body  did  not,  however,  interfere  with 
an  essentially  spiritual  conception  of  its  functions.  The 
nephesh  was  identified  more  frequently  with  the  principle 
of  life  than  is  the  case  with  the  soul  in  modern  times,  but 
this  vital  function  was  in  no  way  inconsistent  with  the 
psychical  and  personal  uses  of  the  term.  It  was  the  same 
soul  that  formed  the  basis  of  the  conscious  as  of  the  phys- 
ical life  and  that  constituted  the  agent  in  both.    There  are, 

"  Gen.  2.  7,  J. 
"'Lev.  17.  II. 
"*  Deut.  12.  23. 

223 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

then,  three  different  senses  in  which  the  word  nephesh  is 
used — the  vital,  psychical,  and  personal — and  it  is  used 
with  about  equal  frequency  in  each.  According  to  H.  W. 
Robinson,^^  the  word  occurs  seven  hundred  and  fifty-four 
times  in  the  Old  Testament;  in  two  hundred  and  eighty- 
two  instances  it  refers  to  the  principle  of  life,^®  in  two 
hundred  and  forty-nine  to  conscious  activities  of  one 
kind  or  another,^^  and  in  two  hundred  and  twenty-three 
to  the  personal  agent,  serving  in  the  latter  case  either  as 
an  equivalent  of  the  personal  pronoun^^  or  as  a  designa- 
tion of  the  individual  man.^^  The  nephesh  was  thus 
plainly  regarded  as  the  seat  of  the  conscious  and  per- 
sonal life,  but  it  was  not  the  exclusive  seat  of  this  higher 
life.  Psychical  functions,  as  we  have  seen,  were  attrib- 
uted to  the  flesh  as  well  as  to  the  soul,  and  the  term  basar 
as  well  as  nephesh  was  used  to  designate  the  total  life  of 
man.  It  should  further  be  noted  that  no  distinction  is 
made  between  the  psychical  functions  attributed  to  the 
flesh  and  those  attributed  to  the  soul.  One  might  have 
supposed  that  the  higher  psychical  activities  would  be  at- 
tributed to  the  soul  and  the  lower  to  the  flesh.  But  such 
is  not  the  case.  The  highest  spiritual  activities  are  at 
times  assigned  to  the  flesh,^^'  while  the  sensations  of  phys- 
ical hunger^ ^  and  sexual  passion^^  are  attributed  to  the 
soul.  It  is  evident  from  this  that  soul  and  body  did  not 
in  Hebrew  thought  constitute  a   dualism   in  the  strict 

'^  The  Christian  Doctrine  of  Man,  p.  l6. 

^°  For  example,  i  Kings  19.  10. 

"  For  example,  Gen.  42.  21. 

"  For  example,  Num.  2^.  10. 

"  For  example,  Gen.  12.  5. 

*•  Psa.  63.  I. 

"  Prov.  27.  7. 

»^  Gen.  34.  8,  E. 

224 


THE  NATURE  OF  MAN 

sense  of  the  term.  They  were  correlative  rather  than 
antithetic  terms.  Though  rooted  in  independent  prin- 
ciples, they  formed  a  unity.  What  we,  then,  actually  have 
in  Old  Testament  psychology  is  an  "explanation  of  the 
unity  of  personality  along  two  parallel  lines  of  primitive 
thought,  according  as  the  (supposed)  immediate  organ 
or  the  more  ultimate  and  mysterious  breath  might  be 
made  the  starting-point."  ^^ 

The  question  has  been  raised  as  to  whether  there  is  any 
basis  in  the  Old  Testament  for  the  doctrine  of  the  pre- 
existence  of  the  soul.  Some  have  interpreted  the  latter 
part  of  I  Sam.  2.  6  as  referring  to  "a  sojourn  of  unborn 
beings  in  the  realm  of  Sheol,"  and  it  has  also  been  argued 
that  Job^"*  in  speaking  of  his  mother's  womb,  from  which 
he  had  come  and  to  which  he  was  to  return,  had  in  mind 
the  womb  of  Sheol.  But  neither  of  these  interpretations 
has  a  sound  basis.  In  Psa.  139.  15  the  writer  speaks  of 
himself  as  having  been  "curiously  wrought  in  the  lowest 
parts  of  the  earth."  As  this  is  a  late  psalm  it  is  not  im- 
possible that  there  may  here  be  a  reference  to  the  soul's 
preexistence  in  Sheol,  but  what  we  more  probably  have  is 
simply  a  description  of  the  mysterious  origin  of  human 
life.  The  general  conception  of  the  soul  current  among 
the  Hebreiws  was  unfavorable  to  the  belief  in  its  pre- 
existence. Body  and  soul  in  the  Old  Testament  went  to- 
gether. The  soul  had  no  separate  and  detached  existence 
either  before  its  union  with  the  body  or  after  the  dis- 
solution of  the  union.  The  inhabitants  of  the  nether- 
world were  not  souls  but  shades  (rephaim).  The  shades 
were  shadowlike  images  of  our  earthly  life.  In  this 
vague  sense  they  no  doubt  represented  a  continuation 

"  H.  W.  Robinson,  The  Christian  Doctrine  of  Man,  p.  21. 
'*  I.  21. 

225 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

of  the  existence  of  both  soul  and  body,^°  and  in  a  similar 
way  it  is  conceivable  that  the  Hebrews  might  also  have 
thought  of  the  soul  as  preexistent.  But  there  is  no  evi- 
dence of  such  a  belief.  The  preexistence  of  the  soul  was 
a  Hellenic  doctrine  that  did  not  gain  access  into  Hebrew 
thought  until  the  postcanonical  period.  The  earliest  dis- 
tinct reference  to  it  is  in  the  Wisdom  of  Solomon  (8. 

i9f.)- 

Another  point  that  has  been  much  discussed  is  as  to 
whether  the  Old  Testament  favors  traducianism  or  crea- 
tionism.  Is  the  soul  of  the  child  derived  from  its  parents 
or  is  it  created  directly  by  God?  This  is  a  problem  that 
can  hardly  be  said  to  have  existed  for  the  Old  Testament 
writers,  and  it  is  doubtful  if  their  teaching  can  be  said  to 
be  favorable  to  either  view.  The  native  realism  of  the 
human  mind  would  naturally  lead  to  traducianism,  and 
this  is  no  doubt  the  tendency  represented  by  much  of  the 
Old  Testament.  It  is  also  argued  that  traducianism  is 
implied  in  the  Old  Testament  doctrine  of  inherited  sin,^® 
in  the  account  of  the  creation  of  woman,^'^  and  in  the 
representation  of  creation  as  coming  to  an  absolute  end  in 
man.^^  But  over  against  this  attention  may  be  directed 
to  the  vivid  sense  of  the  divine  immanence  in  the  Old 
Testament,  the  tendency  to  ascribe  everything  to  God  as 
its  source.  The  origin  of  the  soul  and  the  total  life  of 
man  is  frequently  referred  to  the  creative  activity  of 
God.^^  Between  these  two  tendencies  there  was,  how- 
ever, no  conscious  conflict  in  the  Old  Testament.     As 

*'  Job  14.  22. 

Tsa.  51.  5;  Deut.  5.  9;  Job  14.  4. 
*'  Gen.  2.  21-24,  J. 
^  Gen.  I.  26  to  2.  3,  P. 

*°Psa.  33.  is;  95.  6;  119.  73;  Zech.  12.  i;  Job  10.  8;  33.  4;  Jer. 
I.  s;  38.  16;  Isa.  57.  16. 

226 


THE  NATURE  OF  MAN 

good  a  statement  as  any  of  the  teaching  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment on  this  point  is  that  of  Schultz.  "Bibhcal  traducian- 
ism,"  he  says,  "is,  indeed,  opposed  to  that  scholastic  crea- 
tionism,  which  conceives  of  a  soul  distinct  from  the  body, 
being  called  forth  directly  from  God,  but  not  to  the  reli- 
gious creationism  which  is  convinced  that  each  individual 
is  an  immediate  expression  of  God's  creative  will."  *^ 

Thus  far  it  has  been  assumed  that  according  to  Old 
Testament  psychology  there  were  only  two  component 
elements  in  human  nature,  body  and  soul.  But  besides  the 
word  nephesh,  or  soul,  we  often  meet  with  the  word 
ruach,  or  spirit,  and  this  has  given  rise  to  the  question  as 
to  whether  the  Old  Testament  does  not  teach  a  threefold 
instead  of  a  twofold  division  of  human  nature,  trichot- 
omy instead  of  dichotomy.  "Spirit"  and  "soul,"  it  is 
urged,  are  not  synonymous  terms.  They  designate  dis- 
tinct elements  in  human  nature.  What  the  exact  relation 
of  these  two  elements  to  each  other  is,  is  admittedly  not 
clear.  But  much  ingenuity  has  been  expended  in  the 
effort  to  solve  the  problem.  The  most  notable  attempt 
was  that  by  the  distinguished  Franz  Delitzsch.  "Spirit 
and  soul,"  he  says,  "are  of  one  nature,  but  of  distinct 
substances.  If  anyone  would  rather  say  that  the  soul  is  a 
Tertium,  or  third  existence,  not  substantially  indeed,  but 
potentially  independent,  between  spirit  and  body,  but  by 
its  nature  pertaining  to  the  side  of  the  spirit,  we  have  no 
objection  to  it.  .  .  .  Although  the  soul  originated  out 
of  the  essence  of  the  spirit,  it  is  not  of  absolutely  identical 
condition  with  it,  or,  as  we  prefer  saying,  it  is  not  one  and 
the  same  substance  with  the  spirit,  but  a  substance  that 


"  Old  Testament  Theology,  vol.  ii,  p.  182. 

227 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

stands  in  a  secondary  relation  with  it.  It  is  of  one  nature 
with  it,  but  not  one  distinct  nature,  as  the  Son  and 
the  Spirit  are  of  one  nature  with  the  Father,  but  still  not 
the  same  hypostases.  .  .  .  The  spirit  is  the  inbreathing 
of  the  Godhead,  and  the  soul  is  the  outbreathing  of  the 
spirit.  .  .  .  The  spirit  is  the  inward  being  of  the  soul, 
and  the  soul  is  the  external  nature  of  the  spirit.  .  .  . 
The  spirit  is  the  image  of  the  triune  Godhead,  but  the  soul 
is  the  copy  of  the  image."  ^^  Delitzsch  regarded  this 
theory  as  the  key  to  biblical  psychology,  declaring  that 
with  his  insight  into  and  acceptance  of  it  his  "confused 
materials  of  biblical  psychology  formed  themselves  as  if 
spontaneously  into  a  systematic  unity."  But  this  system- 
atic unity  was  subjective.  It  is  not  to  be  found  in  Scrip- 
ture. 

There  are  two  verses  in  the  New  Testament  that  are 
frequently  adduced  in  support  of  a  threefold  division  of 
human  nature,  i  Thess.  5.  23  and  Heb.  4.  12,  but  it  is 
doubtful  if  either  of  them  requires  such  an  interpretation. 
There  is  also  one  verse  in  the  Old  Testament  that  is  often 
so  interpreted,  Gen.  2.  7.  "This  one  verse,"  says  De- 
litzsch, "is  of  such  deep  significance  that  interpretation 
can  never  exhaust  it;  it  is  the  foundation  of  all  true  an- 
thropology and  psychology."  ^^  R.  H.  Charles  also  attrib- 
utes to  this  verse  a  special  significance,  though  in  a  dif- 
ferent sense  from  Delitzsch.  He  finds  in  it  a  different 
view  of  human  nature  from  that  represented  by  the  Old 
Testament  as  a  whole.  Here  "man  is  represented  as  a 
trichotomy  of  spirit,  soul  and  body :  the  spirit  is  the  breath 
of  God,  and  the  soul  only  a  function  of  the  quickened 
body.     According  to  this  view,  when  the  spirit  is  with- 

*^  System  of  Biblical  Psychology,  pp.  116,  117,  118,  119. 
*"  Ibid.,  p.  90. 

228 


THE  NATURE  OF  MAN 

drawn  the  personality  is  extinguished  at  death."  *^  This 
view  he  finds  reflected  also  in  Eccl.  12.  7.  But  this  is 
taking  the  language  of  Gen.  2.  7  in  too  strict  and  precise 
a  sense.  "All  that  seems  in  question  here  is  just  the  giv- 
ing of  vitality  to  man.  There  seems  no  allusion  to  man's 
immaterial  being,  to  his  spiritual  element.  It  is  a  picture 
of  his  endowment  with  vitality.  Vitality  is  communicated 
by  God,  and  he  is  here  pictorially  represented  as  communi- 
cating it  by  breathing  into  man's  nostrils  that  breath 
which  is  the  sign  of  Hfe."  ^* 

That  ruach  did  not  denote  a  third  element  in  human 
nature,  distinct  from  the  ncphesh,  is  evident  from  the 
fact  that  it  is  often  used  synonymously  with  nephesh  as 
a  designation  both  of  the  principle  of  vitality^^  and  the  re- 
sultant psychical  life.^^  In  the  former  sense  it  is  used 
thirty-nine  times  in  the  Old  Testament,  and  in  the  latter 
seventy-four.  The  latter  use  seems  to  have  been  rather 
late  in  its  development.  At  least  it  did  not  become  com- 
mon until  the  exilic  and  postexilic  period.  In  the  former 
sense,  that  of  vitality  or  life-energy,  ruach  appears  in  a 
number  of  early  passages,^^  but  not  until  the  time  of 
Ezekiel  does  it  seem  to  have  been  used  to  denote  "the 
normal  breath-soul  as  the  principle  of  life  in  man."  ^^ 
From  that  time  on,  however,  it  became  a  common  desig- 
nation of  the  psychical  element  in  man. 


*^ Religious  Development  between  the  Old  and  Neiv  Testaments, 
pp.  I24f. 

"  A.  B.  Davidson,  Theology  of  the  Old  Testament,  p.  194. 

*^  For  example,  Gen.  6.  17;  45.  27;  Judg.  15.  19;  i  Sam.  30.  12; 
Ezek.  2,7.  5 ;  Psa.  104.  29. 

*"  For  example,  Isa.  26.  9;  Exod.  28.  3;  Psa.  51.  12;  Judg.  8.  3; 
Isa.  19.  14;  Prov.  16.  18. 

"Gen.  45.  27,  E;  Judg.  15.  19;  i  Sam.  30.  12;  i  Kings  10.  5. 

^  Ezek.  2>7-  5,  6,  8. 

229 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

But  while  ruach  and  nephesh  thus  denoted  the  same 
component  element  in  human  nature,  the  two  terms  were 
not  mere  synonyms.  Ruach  meant  originally  air  in  mo- 
tion, and  so  was  applied  both  to  the  wind  and  to  the 
breathing  or  panting  of  men  and  animals  in  excitement 
or  distress.  The  latter  use  was  naturally  extended  so  as 
to  include  the  mental  states  that  gave  rise  to  quick  and 
vigorous  breathing.  In  this  way  ruach  came  to  denote  the 
stronger  and  stormier  emotions,  such  as  anger,  grief, 
zeal,^^  while  the  milder  feelings  were  attributed  to  the 
nephesh.  But  a  far  more  important  difference  between 
the  two  terms  is  found  in  the  fact  that  ruach  was  used  of 
God  as  well  as  man.  Indeed,  the  primary  reference  was 
to  God.  Nephesh  was  a  corollary  of  basar  ("flesh"),  but 
not  so  ruach.  Ruach  was  characteristic  of  deity,  and  in 
this  sense  stood  in  a  certain  antithesis  to  flesh.  When, 
then,  ruach  came  to  be  applied  to  the  breath-soul  of  man, 
a  certain  affinity  was  established  between  the  human  and 
the  divine.  The  higher  association  of  the  term  with  the 
Spirit  of  God  inevitably  had  its  influence  on  the  concep- 
tion of  the  human  spirit.  "The  similarity  of  terminology 
kept  open  a  heavenward  door,  so  to  speak,  in  human 
nature,  and  no  more  striking  case  could  be  found  of  the 
influence  of  language  on  the  thought  it  shapes  even 
whilst  it  serves."  ^^  It  is  here  that  the  most  significant 
fact  connected  with  Old  Testament  psychology  is  to  be 
found.  No  parallel  to  it  occurs  in  any  ethnic  system. 
"Spirit,"  says  Laidlaw,  "is  not  so  used  by  Plato,  by  Philo, 
by  the  earlier  Stoics,  by  Plotinus  and  the  Neo-Platonists, 
nor,  indeed,  anywhere  out  of  the  circle  of  Bible  thought. 
It  denotes  the  direct  dependence  of  man  upon  God.    The 

'"Judg.  8.  3;  Gen.  26.  35;  Hag.  i.  14;  Job  15.  13;  Eccl.  10.  4. 
"  H.  W.  Robinson,  The  Chnstian  Doctrine  of  Man,  p.  27. 

230 


THE  NATURE  OF  MAN 

peculiarly  biblical  idea  is  the  attribution  to  man,  as  the 
highest  in  him,  of  that  which  is  common  to  man  with 
God.  Spirit  is  the  God-given  principle  of  man's  life, 
physical,  mental,  and  spiritual."  °^  The  development  of 
this  thought  had  far-reaching  consequences.  It  led  to  a 
new  and  far  higher  conception  of  human  destiny.  "Man 
had  only  to  find  along  this  line  the  fulfillment  of  the 
deepest  moral  and  religious  demands  of  his  life,  to  be 
lifted  into  a  realm  where  personality  is  victorious  over 
death."  52 

In  addition  to  "soul"  and  "spirit"  the  Hebrews  used  the 
word  "heart"  (leb  or  lebab)  to  designate  the  inner  life  of 
man.  We  also  employ  the  same  figure  of  speech.  But 
with  us  the  usage  is  more  distinctly  metaphorical  than 
with  the  Hebrews.  With  them  the  blood  was  the  actual 
seat  of  the  soul,  and  the  heart  as  the  center  of  the  blood- 
life  or,  as  we  should  say,  circulatory  system  was  thought 
of  as  the  direct  organ  of  consciousness.  It  served  some- 
what the  same  function  as  the  "brain"  does  with  us;  only 
the  connection  between  the  physical  organ  and  the  con- 
scious life  was  more  realistically  conceived.  It  happens 
also  that  the  word  "brain"  or  "brains"  with  us  comes 
nearer  to  suggesting  the  psychical  import  of  the  Hebrew 
leb  or  lebab  than  does  our  word  "heart."  Heart  with  us 
denotes  the  emotional  side  of  life,  and  this  was  true  to 
some  extent  also  of  Hebrew  usage. ^^  But  it  was  chiefly 
intellectual  and  volitional  activities  that  were  referred  by 
the  Hebrews  to   the  heart.^*     The  emotional  life  was 


"  Hastings'  Dictionary  of  the  Bible,  vol.  iv,  p.  167. 

'*H.  W.  Robinson,  The  Religious  Ideas  of  the  Old  Testament, 
p.  83. 

■■'Gen.  42.  28,  J;  Judg.  18.  20;  i  Sam.  4.  13;  25.  36;  2  Sam.  14.  i. 

"Exod.  7.  23,  E;  28.  3,  P;  Deut.  7.  17;  4.  9;  i  Sam.  2.  35;  i 
Kings  3.  9;  Hos.  7.  11. 

231 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

thought  of  more  particularly  as  having  its  seat  in  the 
nephcsh.^^  "With  all  thy  heart,  and  with  all  thy  soul,"  ^« 
meant,  then,  "with  all  one's  mental  powers."  No  special 
significance,  however,  attaches  to  this  difference  of  con- 
notation in  the  case  of  the  two  terms.  "Heart"  and  "soul" 
are  often  used  synonymously  with  each  other  and  with 
"spirit"  to  denote  the  total  conscious  life  of  man. 

In  our  discussion  thus  far  we  have  arrived  at  several 
conclusions  that  have  a  bearing  on  the  relation  of  Old 
Testament  teaching  to  the  spirituality  of  man.  We  have 
seen  that  the  Old  Testament  conception  of  man  is  anti- 
materialistic  in  the  sense  that  it  does  not  reduce  human 
life  to  a  purely  physical  basis.  It  does  not  regard  man  as 
the  outcome  of  a  collocation  of  merely  material  elements. 
There  is  in  human  nature  a  higher  spiritual  factor,  a  soul. 
In  this  regard,  it  is  true,  the  Old  Testament  simply  reflects 
a  widely  spread  popular  belief.  But  this  belief  is  signi- 
ficant. "The  word  'soul,'  occurring  in  all  cultivated  lan- 
guages, and  the  content  of  the  word,  indicates  a  general 
belief  that  the  soul  is  not  a  passing  phase  of  matter  but 
an  abiding  essence.  In  its  spontaneous  language  the  race 
has  recorded  its  verdict  against  materialism ;  and  this  fact 
constitutes  a  strong  presumption  in  favor  of  the  spiritual 
philosophy."  ^^  To  this  statement  it  may  be  objected  that 
the  Hebrews  did  not  regard  the  soul  as  "an  abiding  es- 
sence;" it  vanished  with  the  body.  And  this  is  no  doubt 
true.  But  the  point  to  be  noted  is  that  the  soul  or  spirit, 
as  conceived  by  the  Hebrews,  was  sufficiently  distinct 
from  its  material  basis,  so  that  it  was  possible  for  it  to 

"Gen.  44.  30;  27.  4,  J;  Psa.  11.  5. 

'°Deut.  6.  5. 

"  Borden  P.  Bowne,  Studies  in  Theism,  pp.  377f. 

232 


THE  NATURE  OF  MAN 

become  the  organizing  principle  of  a  new  life  after  death, 
when  once  the  demand  for  such  a  life  arose.  The  popu- 
lar philosophy  of  the  Old  Testament  was  not  materialistic. 
It  left  the  door  open  to  a  spiritual  view  both  of  human 
nature  and  of  human  destiny. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  Old  Testament  view  of  man 
was  not  dualistic.  It  did  not  oppose  the  soul  to  the  body 
in  such  a  way  as  to  make  the  two  mutually  independent, 
nor  in  such  a  way  as  to  degrade  the  body.  The  soul  was 
not  looked  upon  as  imprisoned  in  the  body,  nor  was  any 
merit  attached  to  the  mortification  of  the  flesh.  Life  as 
a  whole  was  viewed  as  a  unit.  This  is  the  fundamental 
thought  of  the  Old  Testament.  The  flesh,  on  the  one 
hand,  and  the  soul,  spirit  or  heart,  on  the  other,  were 
simply  aspects  of  the  one  personal  life.  No  basis  was  con- 
sequently furnished  for  a  one-sided  and  unhealthy  spirit- 
ualization  of  life,  for  a  neglect  of  the  needs  of  the  body. 
The  natural  was  not  set  in  antithesis  to  the  spiritual,  but 
on  the  contrary  was,  rather,  regarded  as  the  true  field  for 
its  exercise. 

A  third  point  we  have  noted  is  the  accessibility  of  the 
human  to  the  divine  spirit.  The  use  of  the  word  ruach 
to  designate  the  inner  life  of  man  accentuated  this  idea. 
The  fact  that  the  same  word  was  used  for  the  human  as 
for  the  divine  spirit  emphasized  their  affinity.  And  this 
conception,  as  we  have  seen,  was  one  of  special  signifi- 
cance. It  implied  the  unique  dignity  of  man  and  prepared 
the  way  for  the  later  Jewish  and  Christian  belief  that  man 
is  destined  to  share  in  the  eternal  life  of  God. 

A  further  word  relative  to  Old  Testament  teaching 
concerning  the  dignity  of  human  nature  needs  in  this  con- 
nection to  be  added.  As  over  against  God  man  is  regu- 
larly in  the  Old  Testament  represented  as  a  weak  creature 

233 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

of  the  dust.^^  "Cease  ye  from  man,"  we  read,  "whose 
breath  is  in  his  nostrils ;  for  wherein  is  he  to  be  accounted 
of?"  ^^  Man's  relation  to  God  is  such  that  there  is  no 
place  for  human  pride.  God  will  tolerate  no  haughtiness 
of  spirit  on  the  part  of  men,  "The  lofty  looks  of  man 
shall  be  brought  low,  and  the  haughtiness  of  men  shall  be 
bowed  down,  and  Jehovah  alone  shall  be  exalted."  ^^  But 
this  attitude  of  humility  and  consciousness  of  weakness 
as  over  against  God  were  not  inconsistent  with  a  high 
conception  of  human  nature  as  contrasted  with  the  animal 
world.  Men  and  animals,  it  is  true,  are  frequently  classed 
together  under  the  general  term  "flesh,"  and  the  words 
"soul"  and  "spirit"  are  used  of  animals  as  well  as  men. 
But  a  unique  dignity  and  glory  was  nevertheless  assigned 
to  man,  "which  raises  him  not  merely  comparatively  but 
absolutely  out  of  the  ranks  of  the  animals"  (Schultz). 
This  is  clear  from  the  two  accounts  of  man's  creation. 
In  J^^  both  the  body  and  soul  of  man  are  the  result  of  a 
special  creative  act  on  the  part  of  God.  The  animals  are 
created  for  him,  and  both  the  animal  and  vegetable  king- 
doms are  made  subject  to  him.  In  what  is  said  of  the 
creation  of  woman  the  unique  superiority  of  man  is 
brought  out  in  a  naive  but  beautiful  and  impressive  way. 
Woman,  we  are  told,  was  created  because  no  help  meet 
for  man  could  be  found  among  the  animals.  In  P  also 
man  owes  his  origin  to  a  special  purpose  and  act  of  God.^^ 
He  is  here  even  more  clearly  than  in  J  the  end  and  crown 
of  creation.     This  is  true  both  of  male  and  female.     If 


'^^  Gen.  i8.  27,  J;  Isa.  40.  6-7;  Job  13.  25;  Psa.  78.  39;  104.  29. 

'"  Isa.  2.  22. 

'"Isa.  2.  II  ;  compare  Gen.  3.  22;  11.  1-9. 

"'  Gen.  2.  7ff. 

''Gen.  I. 

234 


THE  NATURE  OF  MAN 

there  is  a  trace  of  inequality  in  the  conception  of  man  and 
woman  in  J,  this  is  lacking  in  P.  And  if  there  is  also 
in  J  a  feeling  that  man  did  not  and  should  not  resemble 
God,^^  this  likewise  is  lacking  in  P.  Man  is  here  repre- 
sented as  made  in  the  "image  of  God." 

What,  however,  was  meant  by  the  image  of  God  is  a 
question  concerning  which  there  has  been  considerable 
difference  of  opinion.  The  older  view  was  that  it  re- 
ferred to  the  moral  perfection  of  man  before  the  fall. 
But  this  is  inconsistent  with  Gen.  9.  6,  which  speaks  of 
mankind  generally  after  the  Deluge  as  made  in  the  image 
of  God.  Another  view  is  that  man's  likeness  to  God 
consisted  simply  in  his  bodily  form.  And  this  may  have 
been  the  original  meaning  of  the  term,  but  it  certainly 
was  not  all  that  P  understood  by  it.  Others  find  the 
divine  image  in  man's  lordship  over  nature.  This  thought 
is  suggested  by  the  context  in  Genesis  i  and  by  Psalm  8. 
But  lordship,  as  Skinner  says,  "is  the  consequence,  not 
the  essence,  of  the  divine  image."  We  must,  then,  find 
the  image  of  God  in  man's  participation  in  the  higher 
personal  or  spiritual  life  of  God.  The  physical  need  not 
altogether  be  excluded,  but  the  stress  is  to  be  placed  upon 
the  spiritual.  This  is  manifestly  the  idea  in  Psalm  8, 
where  we  read  that  man  was  made  "but  little  lower  than 
God  [Elohiiu]."  Elohim  here  probably  does  not  mean 
God,  but  the  general  class  of  divine  or  spiritual  beings. 
Man,  though  a  fleshly  being,  it  is  here  said,  stands  next  to 
the  pure  spirits.  There  is  only  a  small  gap  between  him 
and  them.  The  deepest  instincts  of  his  nature  link  him 
to  the  spirit-world.  He  is  made  for  God.  This  thought 
is  suggested  in  a  striking  way  by  the  prophet  Jeremiah. 
"The  stork,"  he  says,  "in  the  heavens  knoweth  her  ap- 

''  Gen.  3.  22. 

235 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

pointed  times;  and  the  turtle-dove  and  the  swallow  and 
the  crane  observe  the  time  of  their  coming;  but  my  people 
know  not  the  law  of  Jehovah."  ®*  It  is  implied  in  this 
verse  that  what  instinct  is  to  the  birds  of  passage,  that  the 
spiritual  impulse  is  or  ought  to  be  in  man.  But  for  his 
willfulness  it  would  lead  him  unerringly  to  God.  In  his 
essential  nature  man  is  spiritual,  and  hence  must  find  in 
God  his  chief  good.    As  the  psalmist  says, 

"Whom  have  I  in  heaven  but  theef 
And  there  is  none  upon  earth  that  I  desire  be- 
sides thee."  ®® 

There  was,  we  thus  see,  a  tendency  in  the  Old  Testa- 
ment toward  a  distinctly  spiritual  view  of  man.  In  spite 
of  a  popular  and  inadequate  psychology  there  was  a  grow- 
ing and  deepening  conception  of  man's  essential  affinity 
with  God. 

We  now  pass  to  the  question  of  human  freedom.  An 
adequate  discussion  of  this  subject  would  require  a  con- 
sideration of  the  problem  of  individualism  in  the  Old 
Testament,  the  relation  of  individual  to  what  has  been 
called  "corporate"  personality.  But  this  is  so  broad  and 
so  important  a  topic  that  its  discussion  has  been  reserved 
for  a  separate  chapter.  Here  we  shall  consider  the  teach- 
ing of  the  Old  Testament  only  in  so  far  as  it  relates  to 
the  general  problem  of  human  freedom. 

Freedom  is  nowhere  asserted  in  the  Old  Testament, 
and  it  is  nowhere  denied.  The  philosophic  question  of 
determinism  and  indeterminism  did  not  exist  for  the 
ancient    Hebrew    mind.      The    Old    Testament   attitude 

""73-  25. 

236 


THE  NATURE  OF  MAN 

toward  the  subject  was  purely  practical.  The  demand  of 
the  ethical  nature  for  freedom  was  fully  recognized,  but 
so  also  was  the  demand  of  the  religious  nature  for  the 
exercise  of  divine  control  in  human  life.  The  result  is 
that  we  have  two  sets  of  facts  in  the  Old  Testament,  one 
apparently  favoring  determinism  and  the  other  freedom. 
The  relation,  for  example,  of  God  to  man  is  in  several 
instances  represented  under  the  figure  of  the  potter  and 
the  clay,®^  and  in  every  case  but  one^^  this  figure  is  under- 
stood in  a  strictly  deterministic  sense.  God  is  also  spoken 
of  as  a  doer  of  evil.  Moral  evil  as  well  as  natural  evil  is 
attributed  to  him  as  its  inciting  cause.^^  In  particular  it 
is  said  of  him  that  he  hardened  the  hearts  of  men.  This 
expression  occurs  especially  in  the  case  of  Pharaoh,^^  but 
it  was  not  confined  to  him.  It  is  used  frequently  of  others 
in  the  Old  Testament.'''*^  Efforts  have  been  made  to  har- 
monize such  statements  as  these  with  the  fact  of  human 
freedom,  but  the  explanations  offered  have  usually  been 
forced  and  unnatural.  All  that  can  be  said  is  that  the  He- 
brews themselves  saw  no  contradiction  between  divine 
causality  on  the  one  hand  and  human  freedom  on  the 
other.  The  two  were  simply  opposite  sides  of  the  same 
fact.  While,  for  instance,  it  is  said  of  Pharaoh  that  God 
hardened  his  heart,  it  is  also  said  of  him  that  he  hardened 
his  own  heart, '^  and  the  same  expression  is  also  used  of 
others."^ 

So  far  as  human  freedom  is  concerned,  it  is  every- 


^Isa.  45.  9;  64.  8;  29.  16. 

"Jer,  18.  Iff. 

^  Judg.  9.  23 ;  2  Sam.  24.  i,  10;  Isa.  45.  7 ;  Amos  3.  6. 

**  Exod.  4.  21,  E ;  7.  3 ;  9.  12,  P ;  10.  20,  27,  E. 

"Jos.  II.  20;  Deut.  2.  30;  Isa.  63.  17,  etc. 

"Exod.  8.  I5>  32;  9-  34,  J- 

"  I  Sam.  6.  6 ;  2  Chron.  36.  13 ;  Psa.  95.  8. 

237 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

where  assumed  in  the  Old  Testament.  It  is  not  said  that 
man  is  free;  the  more  concrete  expression  is  used,  that 
man  "chooses."  But  the  idea  is  the  same.  Man  is  every- 
where treated  as  morally  responsible.  His  free  will  does 
not  lie  beyond  the  influence  of  the  divine  will,  but  it  is  a 
fact  nevertheless  quite  as  much  as  the  divine  influence 
itself.  Had  the  Hebrew  felt  it  necessary  to  choose  be- 
tween human  freedom,  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  divine 
sovereignty,  on  the  other,  it  is  possible  that  his  choice 
might  have  fallen  on  the  latter.  But  no  such  necessity 
presented  itself  to  his  mind.  The  freedom  and  responsi- 
bility of  man  stood  as  a  fixed  fact  in  his  thought,  and  in 
so  far  as  this  was  the  case  the  ethical  interests  of  religion 
were  adequately  safeguarded. 


238 


CHAPTER  XI 

THE  DOCTRINE  OF  SIN 

Oner's  conception  of  sin  is  in  large  part  a  reflection  both 
of  one's  conception  of  God  and  one's  conception  of  man. 
If  God  is  regarded  as  essentially  ethical  in  nature,  and 
man  as  essentially  a  spiritual  being,  there  will  naturally  be 
a  tendency  to  identify  sin  with  moral  evil  and  to  discard 
the  earlier  superstitious  and  ceremonial  associations  of 
the  term.  If  at  the  same  time  there  is  a  vivid  sense  of  the 
divine  presence  in  the  world  and  a  clear  recognition  of 
human  freedom  and  responsibility,  there  will  also  inevit- 
ably be  a  tendency  to  take  a  serious  view  of  sin  and  to 
look  upon  it  as  a  fact  of  central  importance  in  human  life. 
It  is  consequently  only  what  we  should  expect  when  we 
find  both  of  these  tendencies  in  the  Old  Testament.  They 
grew  naturally  out  of  its  conceptions  of  God  and  man. 
They  are  also  the  points  of  chief  interest  in  connection 
with  the  doctrine  of  sin.  Hence  it  is  to  them  that  our 
attention  in  this  chapter  will  for  .the  most  part  be  directed. 

The  Ethicizing  of  the  Conception  of  Sin 

We  begin  with  the  moralization  of  the  idea  of  sin. 
At  first  sin  was  looked  upon  as  simply  an  offense  against 
the  Deity.  This  offense,  in  so  far  as  it  was  voluntary,  no 
doubt  involved  an  ethical  element.  But  according  to 
ancient  conceptions,  an  act  did  not  need  to  be  voluntary  in 
order  to  be  an  offense  to  the  Deity.  An  ignorant  or  care- 
less violation  of  a  divine  law  was  punished  as  well  as 
one  that  was  deliberate.    Then,  too,  the  divine  law  was 

239 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

supposed  to  require  the  performance  of  many  acts  that 
would  not  to-day  be  classed  as  distinctly  ethical.  Reli- 
gious rites  and  social  customs  were  looked  upon  as  obli- 
gatory. Not  to  observe  them  was  to  expose  oneself  to 
the  divine  wrath.  On  the  other  hand,  wrongs  done  to 
one's  neighbor  were  not  necessarily  offenses  against  God. 
An  act  might  be  evil  and  yet  not  a  sin. 

All  of  these  imperfectly  moralized  conceptions  of  sin 
are  to  be  found  in  the  early  history  of  Israel.  Jonathan, 
who  knew  nothing  of  his  father's  curse,  ate  of  the  for- 
bidden honey,  and  thus  exposed  himself  to  the  penalty  of 
death. ^  Uzzah  out  of  solicitude  for  the  ark  put  forth  his 
hand  to  keep  it  from  falling  and  was  smitten  dead  "for 
his  error."  ^  Pharaoh  was  plagued  for  taking  Sarah  to 
his  house,  though  he  did  not  know  that  she  was  the  wife 
of  Abraham,^  and  Abimelech  only  escaped  ''sinning"  in 
a  similar  case  by  a  divine  revelation  of  Sarah's  relation- 
ship to  Abraham.^  Personal  guilt  was  thus  not  necessary 
to  the  idea  of  sin.  Nor  was  it  necessary  that  a  sin  be  a 
violation  of  what  we  would  call  a  principle  of  right.  The 
curse  pronounced  by  Saul  on  anyone  who  should  eat  food 
before  evening  had  no  rational  claim  to  be  heeded,  and  yet 
not  to  heed  it  was  regarded  as  a  sin  punishable  by  death. ^ 
Eating  flesh  with  the  blood  violated  no  ethical  principle, 
yet  it  was  looked  upon  as  a  sin  against  Yahweh.®  And 
so  with  religious  rites  in  general.  It  was  quite  as  much  a 
sin  to  disregard  them  as  to  disregard  the  plain  dictates  of 
the  moral  law.    Then,  too,  the  moral  law  itself  was  identi- 

'  I  Sam.  14.  2T,  43-44. 

'2  Sam.  6.  6f. ;  compare  i  Sam.  6.  igflF. 

^Gen.  12.  15,  17,  J. 

*  Gen.  20.  3,  6,  9,  E. 
'  I  Sam.  14.  24flf. 

•  I  Sam.  14.  32ff. 

240 


THE  DOCTRINE  OF  SIN 

fied  so  closely  with  custom  that  the  two  were  virtually 
indistinguishable.  To  say  that  "it  is  not  so  done  in  Is- 
rael" was  equivalent  to  branding  an  act  as  immoralJ 
It  was  for  this  reason  that  the  census  taken  by  David  was 
condemned  f  it  was  a  breach  of  custom.  This  was  also  the 
evil  of  which  Nabal  was  guilty;  he  refused  to  pay  the  cus- 
tomary levy  asked  of  him  by  David  and  his  band.^ 

To  accept  in  this  thoroughgoing  way  custom  as  the 
standard  of  right  naturally  led  to  externalism  in  the  moral 
life.  Morality  was  looked  upon  simply  as  compliance 
with  established  customs.  And  this  not  only  eliminated 
the  subjective  element  from  morals,  not  only  reduced  sin 
to  what  has  been  termed  "forensic  liability,"  it  restricted 
the  field  of  objective  morals.  It  permitted  new  evils  to 
grow  up  without  a  distinct  recognition  of  their  unethical 
or  at  least  their  sinful  character.  That  this  was  to  a  large 
extent  true  of  the  Hebrews  in  the  eighth  century  B.  C,  is 
evident  from  the  prophetic  writings  of  that  day.  Many 
of  the  people,  especially  the  leaders,  were  assiduous  in  the 
performance  of  religious  rites,  and  faithful  in  the  observ- 
ance of  national  customs ;  but  when  it  came  to  social  in- 
justice, to  oppression  of  the  poor,  and  to  vices  such  as 
luxury  and  licentiousness,  they  seemed  to  think  that  these 
lay  beyond  the  province  of  religion.  There  was  nothing 
in  them  that  need  give  offense  to  the  Deity.  There  was  in 
them  "no  iniquity  that  is  sin."  ^^  In  this  connection  it 
may  also  be  noted  that  moral  obligation  in  early  Israel 
was  largely  limited  to  one's  own  people.     Falsehood  and 

'2  Sam.  13.  12;  Judg.  19.  30;  compare  Gen.  20.  9;  34.  7. 

°2  Sam.  24.  I,  17. 

"  I  Sam.  25.  39. 

"  Hos.  12.  8.  The  text  of  this  verse  should,  however,  probably  be 
emended  so  as  to  read,  "All  his  gains  will  not  suffice  for  the  iniquity 
which  he  has  committed." 

241 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

deceit  were  practiced  against  foreigners  without  rebuke  by 
Abraham/^  Jacob/^  and  David.^^  Against  his  enemies 
the  ancient  Israelite  was  cruel  and  vindictive/^  and  that 
too  in  the  service  of  religion.^^  But  this  was  due  not  so 
much  to  lack  of  conscience  as  to  the  strong  racial  preju- 
dices that  divided  the  nations  and  tribes  of  antiquity. 
The  sense  of  moral  obligation  is  limited  by  imagination 
and  sympathy,  and  where  these  are  undeveloped  as  a  re- 
sult of  ignorance  or  strife,  men  have  no  consciousness 
of  duty  beyond  the  particular  tribe  or  nation  to  which  they 
belong. 

From  the  foregoing  facts  it  is  clear  that  the  early  Is- 
raelitic  conception  of  sin  was  in  several  respects  defective. 
But  it  would  be  a  mistake  to  regard  these  facts  as  repre- 
sentative of  the  total  thought  of  the  early  Israelites. 
There  are  clear  indications  that  a  higher  view  was  also 
current  among  them.  While  the  subjective  or  voluntary 
element  in  conduct  did  not  receive  proper  recognition,  it 
was  by  no  means  completely  overlooked.  The  code  of  the 
covenant  distinguishes  between  murder  and  manslaughter, 
and  protects  a  man  guilty  of  the  latter  from  the  law  of 
blood  revenge. ^^  David,  when  the  people  were  smitten 
because  of  the  census  which  he  had  ordered  to  be  taken, 
said  to  Yahweh,  "Lo,  I  have  sinned,  and  I  have  done  per- 
versely; but  these  sheep,  what  have  they  done?  let  thy 
hand,  I  pray  thee,  be  against  me,  and  against  my  father's 
house."  ^"     The  Decalogue  condemns  sin  in  thought  as 


"  Gen.  12.  loff.,  J  ;  20.  2flf,  E. 

"Gen.  27.  sflF.;  31-  iff-,  JE. 

"  I  Sam.  27.  loff. ;  29.  8ff. 

"  Gen.  34.  25ff.,  JE;  i  Sam.  27.  8f. ;  2  Sam.  8.  2. 

''  I  Sam.  15. 

'°  Exod.  21.  12-14. 

"2  Sam.  24.  17. 

242 


THE  DOCTRINE  OF  SIN 

well  as  in  word  and  deed.^^  And  in  J's  account  of  the 
Flood  it  is  said  of  man  that  "every  imagination,"  or  "the 
whole  bent,  of  the  thoughts  of  his  heart  was  only  evil  con- 
tinually." 19 

Along  with  this  recognition  of  the  subjective  element 
in  morals  there  went  also  an  increasing  tendency  to  look 
upon  all  violations  of  the  moral  law  as  offenses  against 
God  as  well  as  man.  Yahweh  is  represented  as  a  Judge 
whose  function  it  was  to  decide  against  the  guilty  individ- 
uaP*^  and  also  against  the  guilty  nation. ^^  From  the 
earliest  times  he  was  thought  of  as  sustaining  an  espe- 
cially close  relationship  to  the  administration  of  justice.^^ 
"The  judgment,"  we  read,  "is  God's."  ^^  This  view  is 
well  illustrated  by  the  Code  of  the  Covenant,  where  the 
various  legal  and  moral  relations  of  men  are  represented 
as  under  the  divine  protection.^^  It  is  also  strikingly 
exemplified  by  the  sin  of  David  against  Uriah  the  Hit- 
tite^^  and  by  the  judicial  murder  of  Naboth.^^  These 
wrongs  done  by  kings  to  individual  subjects  were  sternly 
condemned  by  the  prophets  Nathan  and  Elijah  as  sins 
against  God. 

It  is  not,  however,  until  we  come  to  the  literary  proph- 
ets that  we  find  a  complete  moraHzation  of  the  idea  of 
sin.  This  moraHzation  manifests  itself  in  several  dif- 
ferent ways.     In  the  first  place,  the  prophets  virtually 

^*  Exod.  20.  17. 
"  Gen.  6.  5. 
^  I  Sam.  2.  25. 
"  Judg.  II.  27. 
"  Exod.  18.  I3ff.,  E. 
"^Deut.  I.  17. 
"Exod.  21-23. 
"°2  Sam.  12.  7ff. 
"''  I  Kings  21. 

243 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

eliminated  violations  of  the  ceremonial  law  from  the  cate- 
gory of  sins.  At  least  they  made  rites  and  ceremonies  so 
subordinate  an  element  in  religion  that  they  ceased  to  be 
factors  of  any  consequence  in  the  conception  of  human 
duty.  What  God,  according  to  the  prophets,  required  of 
men  was  not  sacrifices  and  burnt-offerings,  but  obedience 
to  the  moral  law.^^  Outward  acts  of  worship  when 
offered  as  a  substitute  for  righteousness  were  simply  an 
abomination  in  his  sight.^^  They  were  an  aggravation  of 
sin  rather  than  a  ground  for  its  remission.^^  In  the  next 
place,  the  prophets  made  prominent  the  idea  that  wrongs 
done  to  one's  neighbor  are  sins  against  God.  Indeed,  it 
was  such  transgressions  that  they  especially  condemned. 
It  was  the  social  injustice,  the  oppression  of  the  poor,  the 
bribery,  deceit,  and  luxury  in  Israel  and  Judah,  that  they 
singled  out  as  the  direct  causes  of  the  national  doom 
which  they  predicted.  These  evils  were  not  only  viola- 
tions of  law  or  violations  of  custom,  they  were  offenses 
against  Yahweh  himself,  acts  of  rebellion  against  him. 
He  had  in  earlier  times  been  regarded  as  in  a  special 
sense  the  defender  of  law  and  custom.  But  now  he  has 
risen  to  a  higher  plane;  he  is  the  champion  of  right,  of 
humanity,  a  principle  that  rises  far  above  mere  law  and 
custom.  Moral  evil  of  every  kind  is  now  an  offense  in 
his  sight,  a  sin  against  him. 

Then,  too,  moral  evil,  as  the  prophets  conceived  it,  was 
subjective  as  well  as  objective.  To  some  extent  this  was 
recognized  in  the  preprophetic  period.  But  not  until  we 
come  to  the  literary  prophets  was  the  subjective  factor 
made  primary.    And  among  the  literary  prophets  it  was 

='  Hos.  6.  6. 

■'Amos.  5.  21-24;  Isa.  i.  10-17. 

='Hos.  8.  II. 

244 


THE  DOCTRINE  OF  SIN 

Jeremiah  who  first  emphasized  it.  He,  it  has  been  said, 
"first  discovered  the  soul  and  its  significance  for  religion." 
Hosea  had  represented  sin  as  a  habit,^^  as  something  so  r 
deeply  ingrained  that  its  removal  was  like  the  breaking 
up  of  fallow  ground.^*  Isaiah  had  condemned  all  worship 
that  did  not  come  from  the  heart,  all  mere  ceremonial- 
ism, whether  it  took  the  form  of  prayers  or  of  sacri-  ^ 
fices;^^  and  this  was  also  the  attitude  of  the  other  eighth- 
century  prophets.  But  in  Jeremiah  the  subjective  element 
in  morals  and  religion  was  brought  into  the  foreground 
in  a  way  that  had  not  been  done  before.  God,  according 
to  Jeremiah,  was  one  who  tried  the  heart  and  the  mind.^^ 
He  stood  in  a  direct  relation  to  the  soul.  The  soul  was 
the  seat  of  moral  values.  Good  and  evil  alike  had  their 
source  in  it.  It  was  the  stubbornness  of  the  heart  that 
was  the  root  of  sin.^^  This  stubbornness  was  not  inborn, 
but  through  habit  it  had  become  so  strong  as  to  be  a  kind 
of  second  nature  to  man  which  he  could  no  more  change 
than  an  Ethiopian  his  skin  or  a  leopard  his  spots.^^  And 
yet  a  change  was  necessary  if  the  people  of  Judah  were  to 
escape  the  divine  wrath.  So  Jeremiah  takes  up  the  words 
of  Hosea  and  expands  them,  saying:  "Break  up  your 
fallow  ground,  and  sow  not  among  thorns.  Circumcise 
yourselves  to  Jehovah,  and  take  away  the  foreskins  of 
your  heart."  ^^  Only  a  radical  change  of  character  would 
remove  from  their  lives  the  evil  that  was  threatening  their 
ruin. 


'5.4. 
10.  12. 

'29. 13;  1. 10-17. 
'11.  20;  17.  10;  20.  12. 
'7. 24;  9. 14;  23. 17. 

'  13-  23. 
'4-  3-4- 

245 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

In  the  more  subjective  and  distinctly  ethical  conception 
of  sin  thus  introduced  there  was,  it  should  be  noted,  no 
tendency  to  reduce  sin  to  offenses  against  one's  fellow 
men.  Such  offenses  were  sins  against  God,  far  more  so 
than  any  neglect  of  religious  rites.  But  along  with  these 
offenses  there  were  others  of  a  distinctly  religious  char- 
acter, offenses  that  were  directed  chiefly  if  not  solely 
against  Yahweh.  There  was,  for  instance,  the  worship 
of  other  gods,  the  worship  of  idols,  man-made  images.^^ 
Such  worship  may  have  had  its  evil  social  consequences, 
but  it  was  not  on  that  account  that  the  prophets  con- 
demned it.  They  saw  in  it  a  direct  act  of  disloyalty  to 
Yahweh,  an  act  of  rebellion  against  him.  It  was  so  also 
with  the  foreign  intriguing,  the  establishment  of  alliances 
with  Assyria  and  Egypt,  condemned  by  the  prophets.^^ 
Such  alliances  may  have  threatened  in  various  ways  the 
social  life  of  the  people.  But  this  was  not  the  reason  for 
the  prophetic  opposition  to  them.  What  the  prophets  saw 
in  them  was  a  renunciation  of  faith  in  Yahweh,  a  lack  of 
trust  in  his  protecting  power.  It  was  for  a  similar  rea- 
son also  that  Hosea  condemned  the  anarchy  of  his  day, 
the  setting  up  of  kings  one  after  the  other  without  the 
authorization  of  Yahweh.^*^  Such  acts  were  an  expres- 
sion of  unbehef,  of  distrust  in  the  divine  guidance.  And 
so  in  the  prophetic  literature  as  a  whole  the  fundamental 
element  in  evil  of  every  kind  was  always  disobedience  to 
or  disregard  of  God.  The  disobedience  or  disregard  took 
different  forms  with  the  different  prophets.  Amos  saw 
it  chiefly  in  the  social  injustice  of  his  day,  Hosea  in  dis- 
loyalty or  unfaithfulness  to  Yahweh,  Isaiah  in  unbelief, 

^' Hos.  8.  4-6;  Isa.  44.  9-20. 
■■"Hos.  7.   11-13. 
''S.  4;  7.  7;  13.  II. 

246 


THE  DOCTRINE  OF  SIN 

Jeremiah  in  stubbornness  of  heart,  and  Deutero-Isaiah  in 
lack  of  faith  and  courage.  But  under  whatever  form  the 
chief  sin  of  Israel  was  conceived,  its  essential  nature  re- 
mained the  same.  It  was  looked  upon  as  directed  pri- 
marily against  God  rather  than  man. 

In  the  postexilic  period  we  have  a  continuation  of  the 
prophetic  teaching  concerning  sin,  but  along  with  it  there 
were  two  tendencies  less  profound  and  less  distinctly  eth- 
ical in  character.    These  two  tendencies  were  represented 
by  the  priests  on  the  one  hand  and  the  wise  men  on  the 
other.     The  priestly  teaching  was  a  revival  of  the  cere- 
monialism of  the  preprophetic  period,  but  with  a  differ- 
ence.    The  rites  and  ceremonies  condemned  by  Amos, 
Hosea,  and  Isaiah  were  essentially  heathen  in  character. 
They    were    associated    with    sensuous    and    degrading 
views  of  God,  and  were   furthermore  looked  upon  as 
substitutes   for   righteous  living.     This   was   no   longer 
the  case  in  the  postexilic  period.     The  lofty  prophetic 
conception   of   God   was   then   generally  accepted,    and 
so   also   was   the   prophetic   program    for   human   life. 
What  the  priests,  indeed,  aimed  to  do  was  to  translate 
that   program    into   terms   so    concrete   that   all    could 
understand  it.     This  was  true  of  the  authors  both  of 
Deuteronomy  and  the  Priestly  Code.    These  men  sought 
by  rules   and  rites  and  laws  to   reduce  the  prophetic 
teaching  to  a  form  that  would  be  intelligible  to  all,  and 
that  might  consequently  be  made  the  basis  of  an  efficient 
national  or  ecclesiastical  organization.    The  average  man 
was  not  as  yet  prepared  for  the  lofty  spiritual  truths  laid 
down  by  the  prophets.    He  was  too  much  accustomed  to 
sacrifices  and  sacred  feasts  to  give:  them  up  altogether. 
He  needed  the  outward  rites  that  had  been  taught  him ;  he 

247 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

needed  also  specific  regulations  for  his  daily  life.  Hence 
it  was  that  the  priests  detached  the  earlier  sacred  institu- 
tions, such  as  the  Sabbath  and  sacred  feasts,  from  their 
heathen  associations,^"  and  sought  to  make  them  symbols 
of  higher  religious  truth.  Hence  it  was  that  they  laid 
down  specific  rules  for  daily  conduct. 

In  carrying  out  this  program  they  placed,  it  is  true,  the 
ceremonial  requirements  alongside  of  the  ethical,  and  left 
them  both  apparently  on  the  same  level.  Indeed,  they 
seem  to  have  devoted  more  attention  to  the  ceremonial 
than  the  ethical.  But  they  still  did  not  lose  sight  of  the 
essentially  ethical  character  of  the  teaching  they  had  in- 
herited. The  Decalogue  with  its  moral  demands  re- 
mained for  them  the  fundamental  law  of  the  land.  Then, 
too,  the  ceremonial  as  such  was  not  simply  a  symbol  of 
higher  religious  truth.  It  was  an  expression  of  refined 
religious  taste.  It  carried  with  it  the  idea  that  we  owe 
God  not  only  the  obedience  due  a  righteous  Judge,  but 
also  that  personal  consideration,  that  feeling  of  reverence 
and  awe,  due  the  Lord  of  the  universe.^^ 

But  in  spite  of  these  spiritual  elements  in  the  later  cere- 
monialism it  was  inevitable  that  the  stress  placed  by  the 
priests  on  ritual  offenses  should  give  rise  to  more  or  less 
of  externalism  in  the  conception  of  sin.  It  is  difficult  for 
people  to  keep  steadily  in  view  the  symbolic  and  spiritual 
significance  of  a  ritual.  The  mind  easily  loses  itself  in  the 
outward  form,  and  thus  an  offense  against  the  ritual  tends 
to  become  a  mere  violation  of  an  external  rule.  It  ceases 
to  be  a  matter  of  conscience.     Lord  Melbourne,  it  is  re- 


*°The  Sabbath  was  probably  derived  from  the  Babylonians,  and 
the  three  great  annual  feasts,  that  of  Unleavened  Bread,  Pentecost, 
and  Tabernacles,  from  the  Canaanites. 

"  See  pp.  i5of. 

248 


THE  DOCTRINE  OF  SIN 

lated,  once  protested  against  a  sermon  on  personal  sin  by- 
rising  from  his  seat  and  stalking  down  the  aisle,  mutter- 
ing to  himself  that  things  had  come  to  a  pretty  pass  when 
religion  was  made  to  invade  a  man's  private  life.  And 
this  is  the  attitude  of  mind  which  a  ceremonial  type  of 
religion  is  likely  to  create.  It  makes  of  sin  something 
impersonal  and  objective.  It  may  take  sin  seriously. 
This  was  true  in  a  marked  degree  of  postexilic  Judaism. 
The  whole  levitical  system  centered  about  the  fact  of  sin 
and  its  removal.  But  sin  was  nevertheless  conceived  to 
a  large  extent  in  an  external  way,  in  a  way  that  involved 
no  vital  grip  on  conscience. 

This  is  reflected  in  the  distinction  made  in  the  priestly 
law  between  two  classes  of  sins,  sins  committed  "with 
a  high  hand,"  ^^  and  sins  committed  "unwittingly."  ^^ 
This  distinction  did  not  correspond  fully  with  our  distinc- 
tion between  intentional  and  unintentional  nor  with  our 
distinction  between  moral  and  ceremonial.  "Unwitting-" 
sins  might  be  intentional  and  might  be  violations  of  the 
moral  law.  But  usually  they  were  ceremonial  offenses, 
and  were  committed  without  a  full  consciousness  of  their 
sinful  character.  Indeed,  the  latter  was  their  character- 
istic feature.  Unwitting  sins,  while  not  necessarily  unin- 
tentional, were  not  deliberate  and  conscious  acts  of  re- 
bellion against  God  and  did  not  involve  a  breach  of  the 
covenant.  They  might  consequently  be  atoned  for  by 
sacrifice.*^  It  was  this  class  of  sins  about  which  the 
whole  levitical  system  revolved.  And  sin  in  this  sense 
was  manifestly  not  sin  in  the  full  ethical  sense  of  the  term. 
There  was  something  objective  and  mystical,  if  not  arti- 

*"  Num.  15.  30. 

"  Lev.  4.  2,  22,  27 ;  5.  i8. 

**Num.  15.  22-31, 

249 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

ficial,  about  it.  It  did  not  relate  itself  in  an  adequate  way 
to  intention  and  to  conscience. 

Another  postexilic  deviation  from  the  prophetic  con- 
ception of  sin  is  found  in  what  has  been  termed  the  "util- 
itarianism" of  the  book  of  Proverbs.  Here  sin  is  repre- 
sented as  folly;  wickedness  is  lack  of  understanding. 
The  true  guide  of  life  is  to  be  found  in  wisdom. 

"Length  of  days  is  in  her  right  hand; 
In  her  left  hand  are  riches  and  honor."  ^^ 

Prudence  and  righteousness  thus  go  hand  in  hand.  Men 
are  exhorted  to  be  righteous,  because  they  will  in  this  way 
secure  the  good  things  of  life,  and  they  are  urged  to  avoid 
evil  because  such  a  course  will  lead  to  suffering  and  ruin.**'' 
If  men  only  knew  the  inevitable  results  of  wickedness, 
they  would  shun  it.  The  essence  of  sin  is  ignorance,  ig- 
norance of  the  law  of  retribution. 

A  certain  basis  for  this  view  is  no  doubt  to  be  found  in 
the  teaching  of  the  prophets.  They  too  pointed  out  the 
disastrous  consequences  of  sin,  and  condemned  the  peo- 
ple because  of  their  blindness  to  the  doom  they  were 
bringing  upon  themselves.  But,  as  they  viewed  it,  the 
trouble  with  the  people  was  not  simply  lack  of  knowledge. 
There  was  a  radical  defect  in  their  heart  life.  Will  and 
conscience  were  impaired.  And  this  in  the  eyes  of  the 
prophets  was  the  serious  thing.  Not  the  doom  resulting 
from  wickedness  but  the  wickedness  itself  was  what  they 
w  ere  primarily  concerned  about.  They  were  ethical  mon- 
ists.  To  them  the  ideal  was  the  real.  The  moral  law  was 
the  dominant  force  in  the  universe.  Its  imperative  was 
absolute.     Obedience  to  it  was  the  chief  good  of  life. 

■"  Prov.  3.  16. 

"2.  21-2^;  3.  1-2;  10.  27;  II.  18,  31 ;  16.  20. 

2f,0 


THE  DOCTRINE  OF  SIN 

This  does  not  mean  that  the  prophets  regarded  moral 
obedience  as  its  own  sufficient  reward.  They  were  far 
removed  from  such  hollow  abstractions.  Beneficent  re- 
sults for  the  total  life,  they  held,  would  follow  from  obe- 
dience, but  the  primary  and  vital  thing  was  the  obedience, 
not  the  results.  The  prophets  were  thus  intuitionalists 
rather  than  utilitarians. 

The  reverse  was  the  case  with  the  wise  men.  They  laid 
stress  on  the  effects  of  obedience  and  disobedience  rather 
than  on  the  obedience  or  disobedience  itself.  The  result 
was  that  their  sense  of  sin  lacked  the  inwardness  and 
depth  of  that  found  in  the  prophets.  Outward  expe- 
riences became  with  them  more  important  than  the  inner 
state  of  the  soul ;  and  hence  there  was  a  tendency  to  judge 
the  latter  by  the  former.  This  necessarily  gave  rise  to 
moral  confusion,  and  to  superficiality  and  externalism  of 
ethical  judgment.  It  also  led  inevitably  to  a  weakening 
of  the  moral  imperative.  For  outward  fortune  can  never 
furnish  an  adequate  basis  for  the  moral  law.  Morality 
of  a  high  type  is  always  rooted  in  idealism. 

The  true  prophetic  conception  of  sin  is  best  represented 
in  the  postexilic  period  by  some  of  the  psalms  and  by  the 
book  of  Job,  There  is  in  some  of  the  psalms  the  same 
depreciation  of  sacrifices  and  outward  rites  that  appears 
in  the  early  Prophets.    We  read  for  instance : 

"Thou  delightest  not  in  sacrifices ;  else  would  I  give  it : 
Thou  hast  no  pleasure  in  burnt-offering. 
The  sacrifices  of  God  are  a  broken  spirit: 
A  broken  and  contrite  heart,  O  God,  thou  wilt  not  de- 
spise." *^ 

There  is  also  in  some  of  the  psalms  the  same  stress  on 

"  Psa.  51.  16,  \^ ;  compare  40.  6-8 ;  6g.  3of. 

251 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

righteousness  as  the  one  essential  of  true  worship  that  we 
find  in  the  Prophets.    It  is 

*'He  that  walketh  uprightly,  and  worketh  righteousness, 
And  speaketh  truth  in  his  heart ; 
He  that  slandereth  not  with  his  tongue,  nor  doeth  evil 

to  his  friend; 
Nor  taketh  up  a  reproach  against  his  neighbor, — "  ^^ 

it  is  he,  and  he  only,  that  is  to  dwell  in  Yahweh's  holy  hill. 
Offenses  against  one's  neighbor,  it  is  here  implied,  are 
the  chief  offenses  against  God.  And  what,  on  the  other 
hand,  gave  to  a  moral  offense  its  seriousness  was  just 
the  fact  that  it  was  primarily  an  offense  against  God. 

"Against  thee,  thee  only,  have  I  sinned, 
And  done  that  which  is  evil  in  thy  sight."  ^^ 

Such  was  the  feeling  of  the  devout  psalmist  as  he  con- 
templated his  own  sinfulness.  There  is  too  in  the  Psalms 
a  marked  inwardness  of  ethical  life  and  thought.  Clean 
hands  are  not  enough ;  the  heart  must  also  be  pure.^*^ 
God  desires  "truth  in  the  inward  parts"  ;  and  so  the  psalm- 
ist prays,^^ 

"Create  in  me  a  clean  heart,  O  God; 
And  renew  a  right  spirit  within  me."  ^^ 

The  same  inwardness  appears  also  in  the  book  of  Job. 
Sin  is  here  represented  as  rooted  deep  in  human  nature,^^ 

*'i5.  if.;  compare  24.  3-5;  50.  i6ff. ;  66.  i8f. 

*'Si.  4. 

"24.4. 

"51.6. 

''Psa.  51.  10. 

^=■4.  17;  14.  4;  15.  I4f. 

252 


THE  DOCTRINE  OF  SIN 

and  as  manifesting  itself  quite  as  much  in  thoughts  and 
desires  as  in  outward  acts.°*  Indeed,  the  book  of  Job 
hardly  falls  short  of  the  New  Testament  itself  in  its 
penetrating  insight  into  the  inner  sources  of  moral  evil 
and  into  its  power  over  human  life. 

Looking  back  over  our  discussion  thus  far,  we  see 
that  sin,  as  understood  by  the  early  Hebrews,  stood  in 
antithesis  both  to  holiness  and  to  righteousness,  and  that 
this  double  antithesis  was  never  completely  overcome  by 
the  Old  Testament.  The  prophets  reacted  strongly  against 
the  ceremonial  conception  of  sin,  but  the  later  priests  re- 
established it  as  an  essential  part  of  the  official  religion. 
To  violate  the  ceremonial  laws  that  guarded  the  divine 
holiness  was  in  postexilic  Judaism  a  sin  quite  as  much  as 
the  violation  of  the  moral  law.  But  in  spite  of  this  revival 
of  ceremonialism  the  ethical  teaching  of  the  prophets 
persisted.  The  inwardness  of  sin  was  emphasized;  and 
the  way  was  thus  prepared  for  such  a  complete  rejection 
of  ceremonial  holiness  as  we  find  in  the  New  Testament.^^ 
Taking,  then,  the  Old  Testament  as  a  whole,  it  may  be 
said  that  in  spite  of  backward  currents  here  and  there  its 
teaching  is  characterized  by  a  gradual  ethicizing  of  the 
conception  of  sin. 

The  Seriousness  of  Sin 

We  now  pass  to  that  other  aspect  of  the  doctrine  of  sin 
in  which  religion  is  especially  interested,  the  question  of 
its  seriousness.  There  is  in  the  Old  Testament  a  grow- 
ing appreciation  of  the  gravity  of  sin.  This  is  evident 
both  in  the  life  and  thought  of  the  people.  It  appears  in 
the  increasing  prominence  given  to  sin  and  guilt-offer- 


31.  1-40. 
'  Mark  7.  8ff. 


253 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

ings  in  the  public  worship,  and  in  the  greater  somberness 
that  characterized  the  reHgious  Hfe  of  the  postexiHc  pe- 
riod. Various  causes  contributed  to  this  development, 
but  the  most  important  was  the  exile.  The  national  hu- 
miliation and  suffering  that  followed  from  the  fall  of 
Jerusalem  brought  home  to  the  people  a  consciousness  of 
sin  such  as  they  had  not  had  before.  The  book  of  La- 
mentations illustrates  this,  and  so  does  the  whole  post- 
exilic  priestly  system. 

What  we  are  chiefly  interested  in,  however,  is  the  doc- 
trinal or  intellectual  expression  of  the  seriousness  with 
which  the  Hebrews  viewed  the  subject  of  sin.  And  to 
ascertain  this  we  must  inquire  into  the  teaching  of  the 
Old  Testament  relative  to  the  nature,  extent,  and  origin 
of  sin.  These  are  all  important  topics.  We  begin  with 
the  nature  of  sin. 

There  is  in  the  Old  Testament  no  speculation  concern- 
ing the  nature  of  sin.  But  from  the  Hebrew  words  used 
to  designate  sin  or  evil  we  may  distinguish  two  differ- 
ent points  of  view  from  which  it  was  conceived.  First, 
it  was  represented  as  want  of  correspondence  with  an 
objective  standard.  This  is  implied  in  the  common  word 
for  sin,  chattath,  and  also  in  the  word  awon,  usually  ren- 
dered "iniquity."  The  root  of  chattath,  like  that  of  the 
corresponding  Greek  word  hamartia,  meant  originally 
"to  miss  the  mark,"  ^^  and  the  root  of  awon  meant  "to 
go  astray"  or  "make  crooked."  Sin  was  thus  thought  of 
as  deviation  from  a  prescribed  course  of  conduct,  as  fail- 
ure to  do  the  right  thing.  But  this  leaves  us  with  only  a 
very  general  and  on  the  whole  external  conception  of  sin. 

The  other  view  found  in  the  Old  Testament  represents 
sin  as  rebellion.    This  is  the  idea  expressed  by  the  word 

""Judg.  20.  i6. 

2S4 


THE  DOCTRINE  OF  SIN 

pesha,  or  pasha,^'^  and  also  by  such  terms  as  marad,^^ 
marah,^^  and  tsarar.^^  Of  these  words  the  first  is  used 
most  frequently  and  is  the  most  important.  The  spe- 
cial significance  attaching  to  it  is  well  brought  out  in  Job 
34.  37,  where  we  read,  "He  addeth  rebellion  [^pesha] 
unto  his  sin  [^chattatJi]."  Pesha  was  more  serious  than 
chattath.  It,  as  A.  B,  Davidson  says,  "describes  sin  as 
a  personal,  voluntary  act.  It  also  implies  something  re- 
belled against,  something  which  is  of  the  nature  of  a 
superior  or  an  authority.  .  .  .  The  particular  author- 
ity is  not  stated ;  .  .  .  but  the  emphasis  is  laid  upon  the 
self-determination  of  the  person,  and  his  consequent  with- 
drawal from  the  authority.  The  word  could  not  be  used 
of  the  withdrawal  of  an  equal  from  cooperation  with  an- 
other equal."  ®^  It  might  be  used  of  the  rebellion  of  a 
people  against  its  king,^^  but  most  frequently  it  was  used 
of  rebellion  against  God.^^  And  here  it  is  that  we  have 
the  inmost  essence  of  sin.  Sin  is  not  simply  moral  evil; 
it  is  "moral  evil  regarded  religiously."  It  is  disobedi- 
ence to  God.  This  it  is  that  gives  to  the  biblical  idea  of 
sin  its  peculiar  depth  and  gravity.  Sin  is  a  positive  act  or 
state  of  hostility  to  God.  It  is  not  an  "unreality  or 
illusion,"  as  Spinoza  would  have  us  believe;  nor  is  it,  as 
Hegel  teaches,  "an  essential  moment  in  the  progressive 
or  eternally  realized  life  of  God" ;  nor  is  it,  as  some  evo- 
lutionists tell  us,  simply  a  relic  of  the  animal  nature  which 
we  have  inherited.    Not  even  Kant's  conception  of  evil  as 

"  Isa.  43.  27. 

°'  Num.  14.  9,  J. 

'*  Num.  20.  10,  P. 

*"  Isa.  65.  2. 

"  The  Theology  of  the  Old  Testament,  p.  210. 

"  I  Kings  12.  19. 

"Isa.  I.  2;  Hos.  7.  13;  Jer.  2.  8;  Ezek.  2.  3;  Isa.  43.  27. 

255 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

"the  perversion  of  the  right  relation  between  reason  and 
sense,  the  false  subordination  of  the  rational  to  the  sensu- 
ous" fills  out  the  biblical  idea  of  sin.^*  Sin,  as  it  is  con- 
ceived both  in  the  Old  and  the  New  Testament,  carries 
with  it  the  thought  of  a  defiant  attitude  of  the  soul  toward 
God.  And  it  is  this  aspect  of  sin  that  becomes  increas- 
ingly prominent  in  the  course  of  Israel's  history.  Indeed, 
sin  is  not  confined  to  a  hostile  attitude  of  the  human  soul. 
It  comes  to  be  thought  of  as  an  objective  power.®^  "The 
characteristic,"  as  Toy  says,  "of  the  New  Testament 
teaching  is  its  intense  conception  of  sin  as  the  one  great 
evil  in  the  world,  as  the  central  fact  of  life,  around  which 
range  themselves  all  the  powers  of  heaven,  earth  and  hell. 
All  the  manifestations  of  God  in  history  look  finally  to 
the  annihilation  of  this  malignant  power  of  the  human 
soul."  66 

In  the  seriousness  with  which  the  Bible  thus  takes  the 
subject  of  sin  some  see  a  significant  point  of  contrast  be- 
tween the  ancient  and  the  modern  mind.  "As  a  matter 
of  fact,"  says  Sir  Oliver  Lodge,  "the  higher  man  of  to- 
day is  not  worrying  about  his  sins  at  all,  still  less  about 
their  punishment."  ®^  And  Professor  Royce  offers  as  a 
partial  definition  of  the  modern  man  the  statement  that 
he  "is  one  who  does  not  believe  in  hell,  and  who  is  too 
busy  to  think  about  his  sins."  ^^  These  statements  prob- 
ably represent  correctly  the  tendency  of  thought  in  non- 
theological  circles  at  present,  and  it  is  no  doubt  also  true 
that  the  distinctively  religious  mind  does  not  to-day  dwell 

"  See  F.  R.  Tennant,  The  Origin  and  Propagation  of  Sin,  pp. 
SI,  67. 

"'  Gen.  4.  7,  J ;  Psa.  36.  i ;  i  Chron.  21.  i. 
'^Judaism  and  Cliristianity,  p.  220. 

"  Quoted  in  W.  E.  Orchard's  Modern  Theories  of  Sin,  p.  11. 
"  The  Problem  of  Christianity,  vol.  i,  p.  176. 

256 


THE  DOCTRINE  OF  SIN 

on  the  subject  of  sin  so  much  as  was  once  the  case.    But 
this  is  not  so  significant  a  fact  as  is  sometimes  supposed. 
It  is  simply  a  result  of  the  changed  mood  of  the  time. 
In  ancient  Judaism  there  was  a  sense  of  world-weariness. 
The  nation  had  been  defeated  in  its  political  aims.     Self- 
assertion,  it  was  now  felt,  could  yield  but  little.     If  the 
hopes  of  the  devout  Israelite  were  to  be  realized,  it  could 
be  only  by  a  marvelous  divine  intervention.     The  thing 
to  do,  consequently,  was  not  to  devote  oneself  to  a  posi- 
tive program  of  social  amelioration,  but  to  remove  the 
obstacles  to  the  coming  of  the  kingdom  of  God.     The 
ethical  life  thus  took  a  negative  turn.     It  found  its  sat- 
isfaction in  repentance  from  sin  rather  than  in  achieve- 
ment and  self-realization.    With  us  to-day  the  reverse  is 
the  case.     We  have  met  no  crushing  defeat.     We  be- 
lieve God  is  working  through  us  for  the  establishment  of 
his  kingdom.    What  consequently  interests  us  is  the  posi- 
tive program  in  which  we  are  engaged.     Not  what  we 
omit  doing  or  repent  of  doing,  but  what  we  do,  is  the 
thing  that  concerns  us.     The  satisfaction  of  service  has 
thus  to  no  small  degree  taken  the  place  of  the  conscious- 
ness of  sin.    But  both,  it  should  be  noted,  involve  the  same 
ethical  earnestness.     They  grow  out  of  different  moods, 
and  each  finds  its  completion  in  the  other.     Logically, 
however,  the  modern  emphasis  is  no  doubt  nearer  the 
truth,  for,  as  Bowne  says,  "the  religious  life  in  its  idea  is 
altogether  independent  of  the  existence  of  sin.     We  are 
not,  then,  to  think  of  it  as  a  device  for  overcoming  sin 
or  for  saving  sinners.    This  work,  indeed,  has  to  be  done ; 
but  it  is  only  incidental  to  the  deeper,  more  inclusive  aim 
of  religion.     Religion  has  to  do  with  the  relation  of  man 
to  God,  and  would  exist  if  there  were  no  sin  in  the  world 
or  in  the  heart.    Indeed,  it  is  only  in  the  sinless  life  that 

257 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

the  ideal  of  religion  can  be  perfectly  realized;  for  only 
there  can  we  find  the  filial  spirit  perfectly  realized  and 
perfectly  expressed."  ^^ 

As  the  Old  Testament  takes  a  serious  view  of  the 
nature  of  sin,  so  it  takes  an  equally  serious  view  of  its 
extent.  There  are  a  number  of  passages  that  teach  either 
directly  or  by  implication  that  sin  is  universal. 

"Who  can  say,  I  have  made  my  heart  clean, 
I  am  pure  from  my  sin?"  '^^ 

"There  is  none  that  doeth  good,  no,  not  one."  "^  "There 
is  no  man  that  sinneth  not."  '^^  "There  is  not  a  righteous 
man  upon  earth,  that  doeth  good,  and  sinneth  not."  "^  In 
addition  to  such  specific  utterances  as  these  it  is  also  evi- 
dent that  the  total  representation  of  human  life  and  his- 
tory in  the  Old  Testament  implies  the  virtual  universality 
of  sin.  So  far  as  Israel  is  concerned,  her  history  from 
the  beginning  was  a  succession  of  sins  and  apostasies. 
This  is  the  teaching  both  of  the  prophets  and  the  histor- 
ical books.  And  as  for  the  heathen  it  is  everywhere  as- 
sumed that  a  lower  type  of  life  was  expected,  if  not  char- 
acteristic, of  them.  Indeed,  the  whole  philosophy  of  his- 
tory that  we  find  in  the  Old  Testament  revolves  about  the 
thought  that  the  misfortunes  and  reverses  of  human  life 
from  the  time  of  Adam  down  were  due  to  sin.  Sin,  it  is 
implied,  is  a  universal  fact  of  human  experience. 

Over  against  these  facts,  however,  there  are  others  in 

*"''  Studies  in  Christianity,  p.  266. 
"  Prov.  20.  9. 
"  Psa.  14.  3 ;  53.  3. 
^'  I  Kings  8.  46 ;  2  Chron.  6.  36. 

"Eccl.  7.  20;  compare  Psa.  143.  2;  Job  4.  17-19;  14.  4;  15.  14;  Gen. 
8.  21. 

3S8 


THE  DOCTRINE  OF  SIN 

the  Old  Testament  that  seem  to  imply  that  human  sin- 
fulness is  not  absolutely  universal,  that  there  are  excep- 
tions to  the  general  rule.  We  have,  for  instance,  the 
cases  of  Enoch,  Noah,  and  Job.  Enoch,  it  is  said, 
"walked  v^ith  God."  ''^  Noah  is  spoken  of  as  "a  righteous 
man  and  perfect  in  his  generations."  ''^  Job  is  declared 
to  have  been  "perfect  and  upright,  and  one  that  feared 
God,  and  turned  away  from  evil."  '^^  It  may  also  be 
added  that  Abraham  and  Joseph  are  not  apparently 
charged  with  faults  by  the  sacred  writers,  and  that  some 
of  the  psalmists  speak  of  their  own  righteousness  in  a  way 
that  seems  to  imply  that  they  regarded  themselves  as 
guiltless  of  wrongdoing. '^'^ 

Now,  in  such  instances  it  is  quite  possible  that  we  have 
what  were  supposed  to  be  actual  exceptions  to  the  general 
rule  of  human  sinfulness.  The  absolute  universality  of 
sin  was  not  a  dogma,  at  least  in  early  Israel.  Human 
nature  in  and  of  itself  was  not  regarded  as  so  depraved  as 
necessarily  to  exclude  the  possibility  of  a  sinless  life. 
Such  a  life  may  well  have  been  thought  of  as  within  the 
reach  of  exceptional  men.  Not  until  the  time  of  Jere- 
miah and  the  exile,  according  to  some  scholars,^^  did  the 
idea  of  the  strict  universality  of  sin  receive  expression, 
and  after  that  it  was  only  slowly  that  it  gained  general 
acceptance.  It  is  to  this  late  period  that  the  specific  state- 
ments above  quoted  concerning  the  sinfulness  of  all  men 
are  to  be  referred. 

But  while  it  is  thus  possible  that  the  Old  Testament  at- 

"  Gen.  s.  24,  p. 
"Gen.  6.  9,  P;  7.  i,  J. 
'^Job  I.  I,  8;  2.  3. 
'"7.  8;  18.  2off. 

'*  See  Stade,  Biblische  Theologie  dcs  Altcn  Testaments,  p.  257, 
and  Friedrich  Schwally,  Leben  nach  dcm  Tode,  p.  99. 

259 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

tributed  sinlessness  to  certain  exceptional  men,  it  is  more 
probable  that  the  righteousness  ascribed  to  them  was 
relative  rather  than  absolute.  As  compared  with  other 
men  Enoch,  Noah,  and  Job  were  righteous  and  perfect, 
but  this  does  not  mean  that  they  were  altogether  free 
from  moral  imperfections.  Job,  for  instance,  admits  his 
own  sinfulness."^  There  is  no  man,  he  says,  that  is  per- 
fectly clean. ^^  In  a  similar  way  Moses  and  David  are 
represented  as  righteous  in  a  preeminent  degree,*^  and 
yet  serious  faults  are  attributed  to  them.  So  also  Isaiah, 
the  chief  of  the  prophets,  confesses  that  he  is  a  man  of 
unclean  lips.^^  It  is,  then,  probable  that  the  Old  Testa- 
ment writers  did  not  mean  to  ascribe  absolute  sinlessness 
to  any  human  being,  not  even  to  Enoch  and  Noah.  The 
general  sinfulness  of  man  is  an  idea  with  which  the  He- 
brew mind  was  deeply  impressed.®^  Even  the  pre- 
prophetic  Israelite,  as  Koberle  says,  "would  have  re- 
garded it  as  impious  arrogance  to  doubt  that  all  men  in 
the  sight  of  God  are  sinners."  ^*  And  later  this  convic- 
tion was  naturally  deepened  by  the  growing  inwardness 
of  the  ethical  life  and  by  the  greater  degree  of  transcend- 
ence ascribed  to  God,  until  finally  it  became  a  fixed  article 
of  belief. 

It  is  the  universality  of  sin  that  makes  the  problem  of 
its  origin  so  difficult.  Sin  in  the  ethical  sense  of  the 
term  implies  guilt,  and  guilt  involves  freedom  and  re- 
sponsibility.   But  if  men  are  really  free,  why  do  they  all 

"  7.  21 ;  10.  14 ;  13.  26. 

"Num.  12.  6-8,  E;  i  Sam.  13.  14. 

«^Isa.  6.  5. 

"Gen.  6.  5;  8.21. 

*"  Siinde  und  Gnade,  p.  59. 

260 


THE  DOCTRINE  OF  SIN 

sin  ?  To  account  for  this  fact  it  would  seem  necessary  to 
assume  that  there  is  in  human  nature  an  extravolitional 
factor  that  determines  the  will.  But  if  so,  sin  owes  its 
ultimate  source  to  necessity,  not  freedom,  and  thus  its 
ethical  character  is  denied.  This  antinomy  between  the 
race-wide  prevalence  of  sin  and  the  idea  of  guilt  which 
seems  essential  to  the  concept  of  sin  has  figured  promi- 
nently in  the  history  of  harmartiology.  Numerous  at- 
tempts have  been  made  to  solve  it.  Of  these  the  most  im- 
portant one  historically  is  the  theory  that  the  universality 
of  sin  is  due  to  the  fall  of  Adam  and  the  resulting  cor- 
ruption of  human  nature.  According  to  this  theory,  every 
individual  inherits  a  sinful  nature.  Though  not  himself 
responsible  for  it,  he  is  nevertheless  adjudged  guilty  be- 
cause of  it.  In  some  mysterious  way  the  guilt  of  Adam 
is  transmitted  to  all  his  descendants.^^  This  transmitted 
guilt  is  known  as  original  sin  by  way  of  distinction  from 
the  actual  sins  of  which  the  individual  is  guilty.  Sin  is 
thus  unescapable  and  necessary  so  far  as  the  individual  is 
concerned,  and  yet  it  carries  with  it  the  idea  of  guilt. 

To  what  extent  if  any,  the  question  now  arises,  does 
this  theory  find  a  basis  in  the  Old  Testament?  It  was 
once  believed  that  an  adequate  ground  for  it  was  to  be 
found  in  Genesis  3.  But  modern  exegesis  has  pretty 
thoroughly  dispelled  this  belief.  It  is  now  generally  ad- 
mitted that  Adam  and  Eve  are  not  represented  as  origi- 
nally morally  perfect  beings,  that  their  disobedience  was 
not  regarded  as  resulting  in  the  corruption  of  human 
nature,  and  that  nowhere  in  the  Old  Testament  is  any- 
thing said  about  the  transmission  of  Adam's  guilt  to  his 

'"  For  a  clear  and  compact  exposition  and  criticism  of  the  dif- 
ferent theories  that  have  sought  to  explain  this  transmission,  see 
H.  C.  Sheldon's  System  of  Christian  Doctrine,  pp.  317-322. 

261 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

descendants.  What  we  have  in  Genesis  3  is  simply  an 
account  of  man's  first  sin  and  its  physical  consequences. 
That  the  author  took  a  serious  view  of  the  first  sin  is  evi- 
dent from  the  consequences  attributed  to  it :  the  pains  of 
childbirth,  toilsome  labor,  and  the  loss  of  immortal  life. 
But  so  far  as  the  source  of  sin  is  concerned,  the  situation 
with  Adam  and  Eve  was  not  essentially  different  from 
what  the  Old  Testament  represents  it  to  be  in  the  case 
of  people  generally.  Our  first  parents  were  free  to  refuse 
the  evil  and  choose  the  good.  And  so  it  is  with  us  all. 
Each  one  of  us,  as  2  Baruch  says,  is  "the  Adam  of  his 
own  soul."  ^^  Sin  crouched  at  the  door  of  Cain,^^  as 
it  does  at  ours,  and  as  it  did  with  our  innocent  first  par- 
ents. But  in  each  case  it  was  assumed  that  the  tempted 
person  was  free  to  resist  the  evil  and  master  it.  The  free 
will  of  man  was  thus  thought  of  as  the  source  of  sin. 
This  was  true  of  later  generations  as  well  as  of  the  first 
human  pair.  The  "fall"  did  not  impair  human  freedom, 
nor  did  it  impair  that  image  of  God  in  which  the  first 
man  was  made.''^ 

But  while  the  Old  Testament  knows  nothing  of  original 
sin  in  the  sense  of  guilt  transmitted  from  Adam,  it  is 
well  aware  of  a  native  human  bias  toward  evil.  This 
bias  has  its  seat  in  the  flesh.  The  flesh  itself,  as  we  have 
seen,  is  not  sinful.  But  its  impulses,  its  desires,  its  will- 
fulness constitute  the  soil  of  sin.  It  is  here  that  tempta- 
tion takes  root.  We  see  this  in  the  case  of  the  first  human 
pair.  It  was  the  woman's  self-assertion  and  desire  of 
pleasure  that  led  to  the  first  act  of  disobedience.  The 
divine  prohibition  seemed  to  her  an  unfriendly  restriction, 

""54.19. 

"  Gen.  4.  7. 

""Gen.  1.26;  9.  6,  P. 

262 


THE  DOCTRINE  OF  SIN 

and  when  faith  in  the  (Hvine  goodness  and  reverence  for 
the  divine  command  had  thus  been  weakened,  the  allure- 
ment of  the  senses  easily  swayed  (he  will.  So  it  is  also 
with  people  in  general.  Their  fleshly  nature,  with  its  as- 
sertiveness  and  love  of  pleasure,  leads  readily  to  unbelief 
and  disobedience. 

This  fact,  however,  does  not  from  the  Old  Testament 
point  of  view  increase  the  sense  of  guilt.  Rather  does 
it  constitute  a  ground  for  clemency.  Man  is  .so  frail, 
yields  so  easily  to  temptation,  that  God  ought  not  to  hold 
him  to  the  strictest  account.  His  very  weakness  ought  to 
be  an  appeal  to  the  divine  mercy.  This  thought  is  repeat- 
edly expressed  in  the  Old  Testament,**"  and  from  one 
point  of  view  Piepenbring  is  quite  right  in  saying  that  it 
"is  unquestional>ly  much  more  correct  than  the  orth(jdox 
doctrine  of  native  and  hereditary  guilt."  "'*  The  physical 
and  moral  weakness  of  man  does  lessen  the  degree  of  in- 
dividual responsibility.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  it  is  also 
true,  as  Bowne  says,  that  "we  judge  not  merely  the  will 
but  also  the  sensibilities,  not  merely  the  action  but  also 
the  tendencies  and  spontaneities  of  the  being  itself.  We 
demand  not  only  that  the  will  be  right,  but  that  the  affec- 
tions and  emotions  shall  be  harmonious  therewith."  '-^^ 
And  from  this  point  of  view  the  orthodox  doctrine  of 
human  depravity  has  a  certain  justification.  The  native 
inclination  to  evil,  though  we  are  not  responsible  for  it, 
does  carry  with  it  a  certain  sense  of  moral  unworthiness. 
Having  it,  we  necessarily  stand  condemned  in  the  presence 
of  the  ideal.    We  all  feel  that  we  have  come  short  of  the 


""  Psa.  103.  14;  78.  39;  Job  14.  1-4;  13.  25f. ;   10.  8-14;  7.  12-21; 
Gen.  8.  21. 

""  Theology  of  the  Old  Testament,  p.  201. 
""  Principles  of  Ethics,  p.  41. 

263 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

glory  of  God,  and  the  higher  our  spiritual  attainments, 
the  keener  this  feehng  is  Hkely  to  be.  There  is  then  a 
sense  in  which  the  natural  weakness  of  man,  instead  of 
serving  as  an  extenuation  of  sin,  rather  increases  the 
consciousness  of  it,  and  makes  all  the  more  imperative  the 
need  of  the  divine  grace.  This  standpoint,  however,  was 
not  developed  in  the  Old  Testament. 

How  far,  if  at  all,  the  Old  Testament  teaches  the  trans- 
mission of  guilt  is  a  question.  There  are  certain  facts 
that  seem  to  imply  it.  It  is,  for  instance,  frequently 
stated  that  children  were  punished  because  of  the  sins  of 
their  fathers. °^  But  this  did  not  necessarily  mean  that  the 
guilt  of  the  fathers  was  transmitted  by  heredity  to  the 
children.  For,  according  to  the  Old  Testament,  men  were 
also  punished  for  the  sins  of  others  to  whom  they  stood  in 
no  direct  blood  relationship;^^  and  in  such  cases  there 
could,  of  course,  be  no  thought  of  hereditary  guilt.  It 
should  also  be  noted  that  children  were  spared  or  blessed 
because  of  the  righteousness  of  their  fathers  or  an- 
cestors,^* and  such  instances  manifestly  imply  hereditary 
righteousness  quite  as  much  as  the  passages  above  cited 
imply  hereditary  guilt. 

The  passage  most  confidently  quoted  in  support  of  the 
idea  of  hereditary  guilt  is  Psa.  51.5: 

"Behold,  I  was  brought  forth  in  iniquity; 
And  in  sin  did  my  mother  conceive  me." 

Along  with  this  verse  may  be  placed  Job  14.  4:  "Who 
can  bring  a  clean  thing  out  of  an  unclean?  not  one;"  and 
25,  4:  "How  can  he  be  clean  that  is  born  of  a  woman"? 

"Exod.  20.  5;  34.  7;  Lev.  26.  39;  Num.  14.  18. 
"Deut.  I.  37;  4.  21 ;  Isa.  53;  2  Kings  23.  26;  24.  3f. 
"Gen.  26.  24,  J;  Deut.  9.  26f. ;  7.  9;  i  Kings  11.  i2f. 

264 


THE  DOCTRINE  OF  SIN 

Such  passages  as  these  readily  suggest  to  us  the  idea  of 
inherited  sin,  but  it  is  by  no  means  certain  that  they  orig- 
inally expressed  anything  more  than  the  fact  of  the  uni- 
versality of  sin.  The  author  of  Psalm  51  felt  that  he  was 
not  only  personally  sinful,  but  that  he  belonged  to  a  sinful 
race.  From  the  very  beginning  he  had  lived  in  an  evil 
environment,  so  that  sin  had  penetrated  into  the  very 
marrow  of  his  being.^^  His  feeling,  except  that  it  was 
more  intense,  was  like  that  of  Isaiah,  when  he  declared 
that  he  was  a  man  of  unclean  lips  and  that  he  dwelt  in  the 
midst  of  a  people  of  unclean  lips.^^  The  uncleanness  of 
the  people  or  race  to  which  one  belonged  was  regarded 
as  permeating  one's  own  life.  How  this  was  done  is  not 
explained.  There  is  nowhere  in  the  Old  Testament  any 
account  of  the  origin  of  man's  native  inclination  to  evil. 
This  inclination  is  simply  accepted  as  a  fact,  a  fact  re- 
vealed by  observation  and  introspection. 

"  Compare  Psa.  58.  3 ;  Isa.  48.  8. 
-6.  s. 


265 


CHAPTER  XII 
THE  PROBLEM  OF  SUFFERING 

The  problem  of  suffering  is  closely  connected  with  the 
doctrine  of  sin.  Sin  carries  with  it  the  idea  both  of  guilt 
and  of  punishment.  At  least  this  is  the  case  in  the  Old 
Testament.  The  attempt  has  been  made  in  recent  years 
to  eliminate  the  idea  of  guilt  from  that  of  sin.  "Guilt," 
it  is  said,  "is  not  a  feeling,  but  is  an  intellectual  judg- 
ment," and  as  such  it  "can  only  be  established  when 
certain  conditions  exist,  and  whether  these  conditions  are 
present  or  not  is  a  matter  entirely  beyond  our  power  to 
discover,  and  they  certainly  cannot  be  discerned  by  any  in- 
tuitive sense."  ^  The  consciousness  of  sin,  therefore,  does 
not  involve  that  of  guilt,  unless  guilt  perchance  be  under- 
stood as  simply  fear  of  punishment.  But  this,  we  are 
correctly  told,  is  not  the  proper  meaning  of  the  term. 
Guilt  means  moral  blameworthiness,  and  in  this  sense  it 
has  no  place  in  the  consciousness  of  sin.  In  a  similar  way 
it  has  been  argued  that  punishment  stands  in  no  necessary 
connection  with  sin.  Punishment  of  wrongdoing  may  be 
justified  from  the  pedagogical  point  of  view;  but  "retrib- 
utive punishment  is  always  either  nonmoral  or  immoral. 
.  .  .  The  notion  that  wickedness  ought  somehow  to  be 
balanced  by  pain"  is  "wholly  without  foundation."  ^ 

These  contentions,  however,  do  not  commend  them- 
selves to  the  unsophisticated  conscience.    Sin,  as  the  aver- 

*  W.  E.  Orchard,  Modern  Theories  of  Sin,  pp.  133,  136. 

*  William  Temple,  The  Faith  and  Modern  Thought,  p.  140. 

266 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  SUFFERING 

age  mind  sees  it,  cannot  be  dissociated  from  the  idea  of 
guilt  without  losing  its  ethical  character ;  nor  can  it  be  dis- 
connected from  the  idea  of  retribution  without  the  sacri- 
fice of  one  of  the  deepest  convictions  of  the  race.  "One 
thing,"  as  Bowne  says,  "on  which  the  moral  nature  is 
categorical  and  unyielding  is  that  moral  good  and  moral 
evil  shall  not  be  treated  alike.  It  would  be  the  overthrow 
of  the  moral  universe  to  hold  that  moral  evil  could  ever  be 
ignored  as  indifferent  or  treated  as  if  it  were  good."  ^ 
The  ill  desert  of  the  evil  will  is  a  fundamental  moral 
axiom.  This  does  not  mean  that  punishment  may  not 
have  a  remedial  purpose.  In  so  far  as  it  is  the  work  of  a 
benevolent  agent  it  naturally  will  have.  But  whether  it 
has  or  not,  it  is  the  just  desert  of  the  evil  will.  Sin  and 
punishment  go  together  just  as  sin  and  guilt  do.  The 
three  terms  are  involved  in  each  other.  This  is  the  com- 
mon judgment  of  men,  and  this  is  the  view  represented 
in  the  Old  Testament.  Indeed,  the  three  ideas  were  so  in- 
timately related  to  each  other  in  Hebrew  thought  that  the 
same  words  were  used  to  express  them  all.  Awon  meant 
not  only  "iniquity,"  ^  but  also  "guilt"  ^  and  "punish- 
ment." ^  The  same  was  also  true  of  chattath,''  and 
pesha.^  These  terms  denoted  the  guilt  and  punishment 
of  sin  or  transgression  as  well  as  the  sin  or  transgression 
itself. 

In  harmony  with  this  view  of  the  relation  of  sin,  guilt, 
and  punishment  to  each  other,  suffering  in  early  times  was 

^  Studies  in  Christianity,  pp.  I47f. 
'  Psa.  90.  8. 
'Gen.  15.  16,  E. 
"  Gen.  4.  13,  J. 

'  Mic.  6.  7;  Jer.  17.  i ;  Zech.  14.  19. 
'Amos.  I.  3;  Job.  34.  6;  Dan.  9.  24. 

267 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

looked  upon  as  a  penalty  for  sin.  This  was  true  not  only 
of  Israel  but  of  ancient  peoples  generally.  Indeed,  there 
seems  to  have  been  a  still  earlier  stage  of  thought  in  which 
suffering  was  referred  to  the  arbitrary  anger  of  the  gods. 
Misfortune  befell  a  person,  not  because  of  any  sin  he  had 
committed,  but  because  of  the  fitful  wrath  of  some  deity 
or  spirit.  The  supernatural  beings  were  not  as  yet 
thought  of  as  guided  by  fixed  rules  or  principles.  They 
were  subject  to  the  impulses  of  the  moment,  and  hence  no 
one  could  tell  when  he  might  awaken  their  displeasure. 
But  this  stage  of  thought  had  largely  passed  away  when 
Israel  appeared  upon  the  scene,  and  even  if  it  had  not,  it 
was  so  inconsistent  with  the  Mosaic  conception  of  God 
that  it  could  hardly  have  persisted  among  the  Hebrews. 
The  view  current  in  early  Israel  was  that  pain  and 
misfortune  were,  to  be  sure,  due  to  the  divine  wrath, 
but  the  divine  wrath  was  not  groundless.  It  was  caused 
by  human  transgression.  The  transgression  might 
take  a  variety  of  forms.  It  might  be  ceremoniaP  or 
distinctly  ethical. ^^  It  might  be  intentional^^  or  uninten- 
tional.^^ It  might  be  one's  own^^  or  that  of  some  rela- 
tive.^* It  might  be  individuals^  or  collective.^^  In  each 
and  all  of  these  forms  sin  was  made  the  ground  of  pun- 
ishment. The  punishment  might  be  remedial,  but  more 
frequently  it  was  regarded  as  simply  retributive.  In  sonic 
cases  the  sense  of  guilt  seems  not  to  have  been  awakened 

•  I  Sam.  14.  33. 
*"  I  Kings  21. 
"2  Sam.  II. 
"  I  Sam.  14.  27,  43. 
"Josh.  7.  20f. 
"2  Sam.  21.  2,  6. 
^'Gen.  9.  5f.,  P. 
"Exod.  32.  3oflf.,  E. 

26» 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  SUFFERING 

until  the  punishment  was  inflicted,*^  and  this  was  prob- 
ably often  the  case.  But  at  other  times  it  is  stated  that 
directly  after  the  offense  the  offender's  heart  smote  him.^* 
There  was  in  these  early  times  no  well-defined  conception 
of  sin,  and  no  clear  insight  into  the  grounds  of  responsi- 
bility. The  latter  is  especially  noticeable,  and  constituted 
the  chief  defect  in  the  ethics  of  the  early  Hebrews.  They 
did  not  see  the  necessary  connection  between  free  will, 
on  the  one  hand,  and  sin,  guilt,  and  punishment,  on  the 
other.  This  was  a  point  that  could  become  clear  only  as 
a  result  of  the  growth  of  individualism.  But  the  general 
belief  that  evil  would  be  and  was  punished,  was  firmly 
held. 

The  punishment  of  sin,  however,  while  the  general  rule 
of  the  divine  procedure,  was  not  an  absolute  principle, 
universally  applicable.  It  did  not  account  for  all  suffer- 
ing. Misfortune  might  befall  a  man  without  its  being  a 
penalty  for  sin.  This,  for  instance,  was  the  case  with 
Abner,^^  Amasa,^^  the  sons  of  Gideon, ^^  and  the  priests 
of  Nob.^^  These  men,  though  represented  as  guiltless  of 
any  special  wrongdoing,  were  slain  in  cold  blood.  And  so 
it  was  in  war.  The  innocent  fell  with  the  guilty.  As 
David  said  in  concealment  of  his  treachery  toward  Uriah 
the  Hittite,  "The  sword  devoureth  one  as  well  as  an- 
other." ^^  On  the  other  hand,  Yahweh  did  not  always 
punish  wrongdoers.  Sins  might  be  overlooked  by  him. 
Only  when  his  attention  was  directed  to  them  did  he  deal 

"Gen.  42.  2if.,  E;  2  Sam.  21.  iff. 
"  I  Sam.  24.  6 ;  2  Sam.  24.  10. 
"2  Sam.  3.  33. 
^2  Sam.  20.  10. 

"Judg.  9.  5. 
^  I  Sam.  22.  18. 
"2  Sam.  11.  25. 

269 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  SUFFERING 

with  them  as  they  deserved.^^  There  was  no  strict  law  of 
retribution  rigidly  adhered  to  in  human  life.  Yahweh 
acted  in  a  sovereign  way,  doing  what  seemed  to  him 
good.^^ 

Suffering  and  misfortune  in  early  Israel  were  for  the 
most  part  dealt  with  as  isolated  facts.  But  we  have  one 
significant  narrative  dealing  with  the  general  problem. 
This  is  Genesis  2-3  (J).  Here  some  of  the  great  ills  of 
life  are  declared  to  be  penalties  imposed  on  man  because 
of  his  primal  sin.  Those  especially  mentioned  are,  on 
woman's  side,  the  pains  of  childbirth  and  the  tyranny  to 
which  in  antiquity  she  was  subject  at  the  hands  of  her 
husband;  on  man's  side,  the  unresponsiveness  of  the  soil, 
its  useless  and  injurious  products,  and  the  laborious  toil 
of  agricultural  life.  To  these  ills  it  is  customary  to  add 
that  of  death  as  the  last  and  greatest.  But  a  distinction 
needs  to  be  made  between  death  and  the  ills  just  spoken 
of.  The  latter  were  direct  penalties  for  man's  disobedi- 
ence,^^ Death,  on  the  other  hand,  was  natural  to  man.^^ 
It  was  inherent  in  his  constitution.  Had  he  continued  to 
live  in  paradise,  he  might,  it  is  true,  have  escaped  it. 
But  this  he  would  have  done,  not  because  he  was  by  nature 
immortal,  but  because  of  the  wonderful  tree  of  life.  That 
he  became  subject  to  death  was  not  the  direct  penalty  of 
sin,  but  the  result  of  his  being  driven  from  paradise. ^^ 
In  effect  this  no  doubt  amounted  to  the  same  thing.  But 
it  is  wortli  bringing  out  the  fact  that  according  to  Genesis 
3  death  was  not  foreign  to  human  nature  as  originally 


"i  Kings  17.  18;  compare  Gen.  44.  16;  Gen.  16.  5;  Exod.  5.  21. 

-°  o    <vQm      in     I-? 


'2  Sam.  10.  12. 
'3.  17,18. 
'3'  19. 
'  3.  22. 

270 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  SUFFERING 

constituted.  It  was  not  part  of  the  curse  pronounced  on 
man.  Still  the  significant  fact  in  the  narrative  is  that 
the  operation  of  the  law  of  death  might  have  been  avoided, 
if  it  had  not  been  for  man's  sin.  And  in  so  far  as  this 
idea  was  current  in  early  Israel,  it  gave  to  the  common 
belief  that  suffering  was  due  to  sin  a  new  depth  and  seri- 
ousness. Not  only  the  occasional  ills  of  life,  but  its  basal 
evils,  those  that  have  woven  themselves  into  the  very  tex- 
ture of  man's  being,  were  now  thought  of  as  due  to  man's 
transgression  of  the  divine  law.  This  was  a  somber  view 
to  take  of  life,  and  it  was  probably  not  widely  current  in 
the  preprophetic  period.^^  But  its  presence  even  in  lim- 
ited circles  reveals  an  early  interest  in  some  of  the  deeper 
questions  connected  with  the  fact  of  pain. 

The  most  important  contribution  made  by  the  eighth- 
century  prophets  to  the  development  of  thought  relative  to 
suffering  is  found  in  their  insistence  that  the  evils  that 
had  befallen  and  that  threatened  the  nation  were  due 
primarily  to  violations  of  the  ethical  law.  What  aroused 
the  divine  anger  was  not  neglect  of  the  rites  of  religion, 
but  social  injustice,  immorality,  and  inhumanity.  Over 
and  over  again  this  thought  was  hammered  into  the  con- 
science of  the  people,  until  finally  the  idea  of  a  strictly 
moral  government  of  the  world  was  accepted  as  an 
established  doctrine.  In  Deuteronomy  a  larger  place  in 
the  field  of  human  duty  was  accorded  religious  rites,  but 
stress  at  the  same  time  was  laid  on  the  ethical  as  an  essen- 
tial condition  of  the  divine  favor.^°  If  the  people  obeyed 
the  divine  commandments,  prosperity  would  be  their  lot; 
but  if  they  failed  to  do  so,  adversity  would  just  as  cer- 

'■'  Compare  2  Sam.  14.  14.  , 

^^  Deut.  24.  10-22 ;  25.  13-16. 

271 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

tainly  befall  them.^^  It  was  chiefly  national  prosperity 
and  national  adversity  that  both  the  Deuteronomists  and 
the  earlier  prophets  had  in  mind,  but  the  doctrine  they 
laid  down  was  general  and  on  occasion  was  applied  to 
individuals  also.^^ 

Thus  far  we  have  met  with  no  protest  against  the  idea 
that  suffering  is  a  penalty  for  sin.  The  idea  was  gen- 
erally accepted;  but  it  had  not  as  yet  been  applied  in  a 
thoroughgoing  way  to  life  as  a  whole.  In  preprophetic 
Israel  it  was  not  claimed  that  every  sin  was  punished.  Sin 
itself  was,  furthermore,  conceived  in  such  an  indefinite 
way  as  both  intentional  and  unintentional,  both  ceremonial 
and  ethical,  that  it  furnished  no  clearly  defined  criterion 
for  determining  when  suffering  or  adversity  might  be  ex- 
pected. With  such  a  broad  and  elastic  conception  of  sin 
it  was  always  possible  to  find  some  sort  of  justification 
for  whatever  misfortune  befell  either  the  individual  or 
the  nation.  The  eighth-century  prophets,  it  is  true,  lim- 
ited the  idea  of  sin  largely  to  moral  offenses,  but  they 
were  concerned  almost  exclusively  with  the  nation.  And 
there  conditions  were  so  complex  and  so  unideal  both 
ethically  and  religiously,  that  no  difficulty  was  expe- 
rienced in  discovering  an  adequate  ground  for  the  suffer- 
ings and  disasters  of  the  past,  the  present,  and  the  future. 
But  toward  the  close  of  the  monarchy  two  important 
changes  took  place  which  made  it  less  easy  to  hold  to  the 
principle  of  retributive  righteousness  as  the  one  explana- 
tion of  life's  fortunes  and  misfortunes. 

The  first  was  the  Deuteronomic  reform  (B.  C.  621), 
It  sought  to  put  an  end  to  the  evils  the  prophets  had  de- 

"Deut.  28.  1-14,  15-68. 
"Amos  7.  16-17;  Isa.  22.  15-18. 

272 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  SUFFERING 

nounced,  and  so  to  avert  the  disaster  threatening  the  state. 
Its  aim  was  to  make  the  prophetic  teaching  the  official 
rehgion,  and  thus  transform  Israel  into  a  holy  nation. 
With  such  a  noble  aim  the  reform  when  adopted  natu- 
rally created  in  the  nation  a  consciousness  of  righteous- 
ness such  as  had  not  previously  existed.  The  earlier 
afflictions  had  been  deserved,  but  now  it  was  to  be  ex- 
pected that  a  better  future  would  be  theirs.  This  expecta- 
tion, however,  was  doomed  to  disappointment.  A  brief 
period  of  virtual  independence  was  followed  by  a  dis- 
astrous defeat  on  the  plain  of  Megiddo  (B.  C.  609). 
The  pious  king  Josiah  was  slain,  and  the  land  became  sub- 
ject to  Egypt  with  its  oppressive  taxes.  This  subjec- 
tion continued  for  a  few  years,  and  then  was  followed  by 
another  equally  onerous  vassalage  to  the  new  Babylonian 
kingdom.  Against  this  new  bondage  Judah  rebelled,  and 
the  result  was  that  Jerusalem  was  captured  and  a  large 
number  of  its  citizens  deported  (B,  C.  597).  A  few 
years  later  another  rebellion  led  to  a  similar  result,  except 
that  Jerusalem  was  now  completely  destroyed  and  the  na- 
tional life  terminated  (B.  C.  586).  Under  those  circum- 
stances it  was  inevitable  that  the  question  should  be  raised 
as  to  whether  God  had  dealt  justly  with  the  nation.  A 
people  that  had  reformed  its  life  and  worship  in  accord- 
ance with  the  newly  found  book  of  the  Law,^^  surely 
deserved  a  different  fate  from  that  which  had  befallen 
them.  In  their  case  at  least  suffering  was  not  a  just  pen- 
alty for  sin.  The  most  that  could  be  said  for  the  tradi- 
tional doctrine  from  their  point  of  view  was  that  the 
fathers  had  eaten  sour  grapes  and  hence  the  children's 
teeth  were  set  on  edge.^^    The  wickedness  of  Manasseh 


^  2  Kings  22.  I  to  23,  25. 
^  Jer.  31.  29;  Ezek.  18.  2. 


273 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

was  responsible  for  the  doom  that  befell  the  nation.^^ 
But  considerations  such  as  these  did  not  suffice  to  quiet  the 
awakened  mind  and  conscience  of  the  people.  A  problem 
had  been  raised  that  could  not  so  easily  be  disposed  of. 

The  other  change  above  referred  to  was  the  growth  of 
individualism  due  to  the  prophetic  teaching  and  the  dis- 
integration of  the  state.  Even  after  the  Deuteronomic 
reform  Jeremiah  had  no  difficulty  in  finding  a  sufficient 
ground  for  the  disasters  that  befell  the  nation  in  the  wick- 
edness and  disloyalty  of  the  people.  The  reform  effected 
by  Josiah  had  been  only  on  the  surface.  Judah  had  re- 
turned unto  Yahweh,  but  only  "feignedly."  ^®  At  heart 
the  people  were  still  corrupt.  A  radical  change  of  char- 
acter was  needed.  So  it  seemed  to  Jeremiah;  and  in  a 
similar  way  it  perhaps  has  always  been  possible  in  the 
complex  life  of  a  nation  to  find  an  ethical  ground  for 
whatever  misfortunes  have  befallen  it.  Practically  every 
nation  contains  so  many  diverse  elements  that,  if  one 
chooses,  he  can  almost  invariably  establish  a  causal  con- 
nection between  the  sufferings  of  the  present  and  some 
guilt  of  the  past.  But  when  it  comes  to  the  individual,  it 
is  often  not  so  easy  to  apply  the  law  of  retribution.  For 
here  the  correctness  of  the  law  can  be  more  readily  tested. 
The  factors  involved  are  simpler  and  less  numerous. 
They  are  for  the  most  part  open  to  direct  observation, 
and  where  not,  the  conscience  of  the  individual  serves  as 
a  witness.  To  be  sure,  it  is  still  possible  in  individual 
cases,  where  the  principle  of  retribution  does  not  seem  to 
hold,  to  insist  that  a  person's  sufferings  are  due  to  sins  of 
which  others  know  nothing  and  which  may  even  in  part 
be  hidden  from  the  person  himself.     This  was  the  atti- 

*^2  Kings  24.  3f. 
""2.  10. 

274 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  SUFFERING 

tude  taken  by  Job's  friends.  But  their  position  was 
simply  the  last  recourse  of  a  defeated  theory.  It  could 
not  keep  back  the  insistent  pressure  of  facts  nor  break  the 
plain  testimony  of  conscience.  To  every  unprejudiced 
observer  it  was  clear  that  the  innocent  did  at  times  suffer 
while  the  wicked  prospered.  Hence  it  was  inevitable  that 
serious  questionings  and  protests  should  arise  when  the 
prophetic  doctrine  of  retribution  came  to  be  applied  in  a 
strict  way  to  the  life  of  the  individual. 

Then,  too,  the  theory  that  prosperity  and  adversity  are 
rewards  and  punishments  for  good  and  evil  conduct,  is 
defective  from  the  religious  point  of  view.  It  has,  to  be 
sure,  a  considerable  basis  of  fact.  The  laws  of  nature 
and  of  society  are  such  that  he  who  violates  them  will  as 
a  rule  suffer  for  it.  "The  way  of  the  transgressor  is 
hard."  ^'^  And  even  where  there  is  no  consciousness  of 
special  guilt,  sudden  misfortune  speaks  with  a  warning 
voice  to  the  human  spirit.  The  modern  mind  may  agree 
with  Lecky  that  the  belief  that  calamity  is  a  punishment 
for  sin,  is  "a  baseless  and  pernicious  superstition,"  "But 
all  the  same,"  as  McFadyen  says,  "to  the  sensitive  heart 
every  disaster  speaks  an  urgent  message.  We  have  no 
right  to  interpret  it  as  the  punishment  of  others,  but  we 
have  every  right  to  regard  it  as  a  call  to  ourselves~a  call 
to  reflection  and  repentance."  ^^  This  was  in  the  main 
the  standpoint  of  the  early  prophets.  They  regarded 
"each  calamity,  as  it  fell,  more  as  a  call  than  a  chastise- 
ment." But  this  profounder  viewpoint  was  easily  over- 
looked. And  the  tendency  was  for  the  doctrine  of  retri- 
bution as  commonly  held  to  give  rise  to  a  utilitarian  type 
of  morality.     If  uprightness  and  piety  always  lead  to 

"  Prov.  13.  15- 

^  A  Cry  for  Justice,  pp.  46! . 

275 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

health  and  prosperity,  they  will  naturally  tend  to  be  culti- 
vated because  of  their  results  rather  than  for  their  own 
sake.  Virtue  thus  becomes  prudence.  It  ceases  to  be 
devotion  to  principle  and  becomes  a  means  to  a  material 
end.  The  pious  man  feels  that  he  must  be  rewarded  for 
his  piety,  or  God  is  not  just. 

But  more  serious  than  the  utilitarian  tendency  of  the 
principle  of  retribution  was  its  bearing  on  the  relation  of 
religion  to  the  unfortunate  members  of  society :  the  poor, 
the  burdened,  the  oppressed,  the  wretched.  If  health  and 
prosperity  are  invariable  results  of  the  divine  favor,  it  is 
evident  that  it  is  the  strong  and  the  successful  to  whom 
the  comforts  of  religion  especially  appertain.  The  sick 
and  the  needy  lie  beyond  its  sphere.  This  view  was 
widely  held  in  antiquity.  "The  unhappy  leper,  in  his  life- 
long affliction,  was  shut  out  from  the  exercises  of  religion 
as  well  as  from  the  privileges  of  social  life.  So  too  the 
mourner  was  unclean,  and  his  food  was  not  brought  into 
the  house  of  God;  the  very  occasions  of  life  in  which  spir- 
itual things  are  nearest  to  the  Christian,  and  the  comfort 
of  religion  most  fervently  sought,  were  in  the  ancient 
world  the  times  when  a  man  was  forbidden  to  approach 
the  seat  of  God's  presence.  To  us  .  .  .  this  seems  a 
cruel  law;  nay,  our  sense  of  justice  is  offended  by  a  sys- 
tem in  which  misfortunes  set  up  a  barrier  between  a  man 
and  his  God."  ^^ 

Our  feeling  on  this  point  must  also  have  manifested 
itself  to  some  degree  in  ancient  Israel.  At  least,  the  idea 
that  the  unfortunate  were  shut  out  from  the  comforts  of 
religion  must  have  clashed  with  the  early  and  deepseated 
conviction  that  Yahweh  was  in  a  special  sense  the  pro- 
tector of  the  weak  and  the  needy,  the  fatherless  and  the 

'■'^  W.  R.  Smith,  Religion  of  the  Semites,  p.  259. 

276 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  SUFFERING 

widows.  A  contradiction  was  thus  created  in  the  reli- 
gious consciousness  of  the  people.  Logically,  it  may  have 
seemed  to  them  that  need  was  an  evidence  of  the  divine 
disfavor;  the  law  of  retribution  apparently  required  it. 
But  actually  it  must  have  been  clear  that  it  was  need 
which  above  all  things  drove  men  to  God.  God  could  not, 
therefore,  withdraw  himself  from  the  needy.  Such  action 
would  be  contrary  to  his  inmost  nature.  The  very  in- 
stinct, consequently,  that  lies  at  the  root  of  religion,  was 
opposed  to  a  strict  and  logical  application  of  the  principle 
of  retribution. 

The  earliest  book  to  raise  a  question  as  to  the  justice 
of  God's  dealings  with  the  nation  was  that  of  Habakkuk, 
provided  we  accept  the  common  view  as  to  its  date. 
Duhm^°  has  assigned  the  book  of  Habakkuk  to  the  time 
of  Alexander  the  Great,  holding  that  instead  of  "Chal- 
deans" in  I.  6  the  text  originally  read  Kittim,  meaning 
the  European  Greeks;*^  but  very  few  have  followed  him 
in  this  conclusion.  Some  contend  that  the  main  body  of 
the  book  (omitting  i.  5-1 1  and  chapter  3)  came  from  the 
exile.  But  most  scholars  hold  that  it  dates  from  the  clos- 
ing years  of  the  seventh  century.  The  interpretation  of 
the  book  is  beset  with  numerous  difficulties.  The  author 
is  manifestly  perplexed  by  the  unjust  conditions  he  sees 
about  him.  He  cannot  understand  how  God  can  hold  his 
peace  "when  the  wicked  swalloweth  up  the  man  that  is 
more  righteous  than  he."  *^     But  what  gave  rise  to  the 


*^  Das  Buck  Habakuk,  published  in  1906.  Duhm's  view  is  ac- 
cepted by  Max  Haller  in  Die  Schriften  des  Alt  en  Testaments,  ii,  3, 
pp.  2I3ff. 

"  Compare  i  Mace.  i.  i ;  8.  5. 
"^1.13- 

277 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

prophet's  problem  is  not  certain.  Was  it  the  sufferings  of 
Judah  at  the  hands  of  the  Chaldeans,  or  at  the  hands  of 
the  Assyrians,  or  at  the  hands  of  the  Egyptians?  Or  was 
it  perhaps  local  conditions  within  Judah  itself?  Accord- 
ing to  many,  it  was  the  latter  that  at  first  formed  the  sub- 
ject of  the  prophet's  complaint.*^  He  asks  how  God  can 
permit  such  violence,  injustice,  and  oppression  as  prevail 
in  Judah.  The  answer  given  is  that  Yahweh  is  about  to 
raise  up  the  Chaldeans  to  punish  the  wicked  Israelites.** 
But  a  Chaldean  invasion  would  mean  that  all  Judah  would 
suffer,  and  hence  the  question  arose  as  to  how  Yahweh 
could  use  a  wicked  nation  like  Chaldea  to  punish  Judah, 
a  people  more  righteous  than  they.*^  That  this,  however, 
was  the  line  of  thought  in  the  prophet's  mind  is  im- 
probable. "The  wicked"  in  verse  4  is  most  naturally 
identified  with  "the  wicked"  in  verse  13,  and  in  the  latter 
verse  it  is  evident  that  a  foreign  tyrant  is  referred  to. 
Whether  this  tyrant  v^^as  Assyria  or  Babylonia  or  Egypt, 
does  not  matter  much,  so  far  as  the  general  teaching  of 
the  book  is  concerned.  Judah  in  any  case  is  represented 
as  a  righteous  people  oppressed  by  a  wicked  foreign 
power.  It  was  this  fact  that  gave  rise  to  and  that  con- 
stituted the  prophet's  problem.*^ 

The  conception  of  Judah  as  "righteous"  by  way  of 
contrast  with  other  peoples  would  most  naturally  have 
arisen  shortly  after  the  Deuteronomic  reform,  and  it  was 


"  Hab.  I.  2-4. 

"I.  5-11. 

*^  I.  12-17. 

^  If  I.  5-1 1  were  transferred  to  chap.  2  and  placed  between  verses 
3  and  4,  the  interpretation  of  the  book  would  be  considerably  simpli- 
fied. The  foreign  tyrant  would  then  be  Assyria,  and  Chaldea  would 
be  the  power  raised  up  to  punish  the  wicked  Assyrians. 

278 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  SUFFERING 

probably  at  that  time  that  the  book  of  Habakkuk  was 
written.  The  book  of  Nahum,  it  may  be  noted,  also  dates 
from  about  the  same  time,  and  it  too  has  nothing  to  say 
of  the  sin  of  Judah,  though  it  vents  its  wrath  on  Assyria. 
A  similar  and  even  more  bitter  feeling  toward  Baby- 
lonia no  doubt  arose  a  little  later,  especially  after  the  fall 
of  Jerusalem;  and  it  is  possible,  though  less  likely,  that 
the  book  of  Habakkuk  was  written  during  the  exile. 
"If,"  says  A.  S.  Peake,  "Habakkuk  saw  his  vision  in  the 
gloomy  period  before  the  fall  of  Jerusalem,  his  problem 
arises  because  he  feels  so  keenly  the  strange  contrast  be- 
tween the  fair  promise  of  the  happiness  that  should  fol- 
low on  reform,  and  the  dark  fulfillment  now  that  reform 
has  come.  If  it  was  during  the  exile,  then  the  destruc- 
tion of  the  Jewish  state  and  the  captivity  are  responsible 
for  much  of  the  prophet's  perplexity,  and  the  Reforma- 
tion falls  into  the  background."  ^^  Should  we  accept  the 
latter  view,  Habakkuk  would  still  be  the  first  prophet  for 
whom  the  sufferings  of  the  nation  constituted  a  problem; 
for  both  Jeremiah  and  Ezekiel  looked  upon  the  calam- 
ities that  befell  Judah  as  abundantly  deserved.  But  the 
earlier  date  is  the  more  probable,  and  it,  of  course,  makes 
more  evident  the  unique  distinction  of  Habakkuk.  His 
book  marked  "the  beginning  of  speculation  in  Israel." 
It  is  this  fact  that  gives  to  it  its  special  significance  in  the 
history  of  Old  Testament  religion.  The  solution,  how- 
ever, which  it  offers  to  the  problem  it  raises  can  hardly 
be  said  to  go  beyond  the  teaching  of  the  past.  Righteous- 
ness, we  are  assured,  will  ultimately  triumph.  The  pros- 
perity of  the  wicked  will  not  last;  the  heathen  oppressor 
will  be  destroyed.*^     On  the  other  hand,  the  sufferings 

"  The  Problem  of  Suffering  in  the  Old  Testament,  p.  5. 
**«.  5-20. 

279 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

of  Judah  will  soon  be  ended;  the  righteous  will  live  be- 
cause of  his  faithfulness.^^ 

The  problem  of  suffering,  so  far  as  it  relates  to  the 
individual,  was  first  raised  by  Jeremiah.  "Wherefore," 
he  asks,  "doth  the  way  of  the  wicked  prosper?  Where- 
fore are  all  they  at  ease  that  deal  very  treacherously?"  ^^ 
The  wicked,  it  is  here  implied,  ought  to  suffer,  but  do  not. 
To  his  question  why  this  is  so,  the  prophet  received  no 
direct  answer.  The  fact  itself,  he  was  told,  was  so 
familiar  that  there  was  no  reason  why  he  should  concern 
himself  about  it.^^  Then,  too,  the  general  problem  of 
suffering  was  in  his  case  pushed  aside  by  the  pressure  of 
his  own  personal  peril  and  pain.  Over  and  over  again 
he  was  driven  into  a  state  of  rebellion  as  he  contem- 
plated his  own  experiences,  the  persecutions  to  which  he 
was  subject  and  the  sufferings  that  befell  him.^^  Qq^^  j^e 
felt,  had  not  dealt  justly  with  him.  He  had  been  to  him 
"as  a  deceitful  brook,  as  waters  that  fail."  ^^  He  had 
enticed  him  and  overpersuaded  him  to  become  a  prophet. 
and  then  had  left  him  to  suffer  all  manner  of  reproach 
from  men.^^  But  this  sense  of  unjust  treatment  at  the 
hands  of  God  was  not  a  fixed  conviction  with  Jeremiah. 
It  did  not  represent  an  objective  fact  to  be  explained;  it 
was,  rather,  a  feeling  to  be  overcome.  In  his  better 
moments  he  saw  clearly  that  the  complaining  of  which  he 
had  been  guilty  was  "vile."  There  was  something  in  his 
relation  to  Yahweh  so  "precious"  that  all  rebellious  feel- 

"2.4. 
*•  12.  I. 

"  12.  S. 

"20.  7-18;  18.  18-20;  15.   IS-17. 

"is.  18. 

"20.  7ff.;i5-iS. 

280 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  SUFFERING 

ing  ought  to  have  been  silenced. ^^  We  have  here  a  sug- 
gestion of  the  thought  that  fellowship  with  God  is  the 
siimmiim  bonum  of  life,  and  that  as  compared  with  it  the 
sufferings  we  endure  as  servants  of  God  are  not  worthy 
to  be  considered.  This  attitude  of  mind  does  not,  it  is 
true,  solve  the  mystery  of  pain,  but  it  does  give  him  who 
consciously  makes  it  his  own  a  standpoint  from  which  he 
can  view  with  equanimity  his  own  afflictions.  And  this 
was  Jeremiah's  chief  contribution  to  the  problem  of  suf- 
fering. He  showed  by  his  own  experience  not  only  that 
suffering  was  not  inconsistent  with  fellowship  with  God, 
but  that  in  the  light  of  this  fellowship  no  ground  could  be 
found  for  complaint  against  the  divine  justice. 

Ezekiel  dealt  in  a  more  objective  and  dogmatic  way 
with  the  subject  of  suffering.  So  far  as  the  nation  is  con- 
cerned, his  position  did  not  differ  essentially  from  that 
of  Jeremiah,  Zephaniah,  and  the  eighth-century  prophets. 
The  doom  of  Judah  was  abundantly  deserved.  It  was  the 
inevitable  outcome  of  her  long  history  of  unfaithfulness. 
If  there  is  anything  new  in  Ezekiel  on  this  point,  it  is  to 
be  found  in  the  interest  he  manifests  in  justifying  the 
ways  of  God.^®  "His  own  problem  is  not  to  reconcile 
with  justice  the  hard  fate  of  Israel,  but  to  clear  tlie  fair 
name  of  Yahweh  from  the  aspersions  cast  upon  it.  If  he 
seeks  to  justify  the  ways  of  God  to  man,  it  is  rather  that 
God  may  be  vindicated  than  that  man's  heart  may  be  at 
peace.  He  never  felt  the  pressure  of  the  mystery  of  suf- 
fering." ^"^  This  applies  also  to  his  attitude  toward  the 
individual.     He  pleads  with  the  individual  Israelites  not 


"IS.  19. 

**  Compare  14.  21-23. 

"  A.  S.  Peake,  The  Problem  of  Suffering  in  the  Old  Testament, 

281 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

to  continue  in  their  sinful  course.  "For  why,"  he  asks, 
"will  ye  die,  O  house  of  Israel  ?  For  I  have  no  pleasure  in 
the  death  of  him  that  dieth,  saith  the  Lord  Jehovah: 
wherefore  turn  yourselves  and  live."  ^^  But  the  doom, 
when  it  came  and  however  it  might  come,  was  a  just 
doom.  God's  ways  were  always  "equal."  To  this  there 
were  no  exceptions.  Here  it  is  that  Ezekiel  made  his 
contribution  to  our  problem.  He  asserted  in  unqualified 
terms  the  doctrine  of  individual  retribution.  There  is  no 
such  thing  as  inherited  guilt  or  vicarious  suffering. 
Every  man  is  punished  for  his  own  sins,  and  for  them 
alone.  For  this  doctrine  much  could  be  said  from  the 
standpoint  of  abstract  ethics  and  from  the  point  of  view 
of  the  individual's  ultimate  destiny,  and  it  is  probable  that 
Ezekiel  approached  the  subject  from  these  points  of  view. 
But  when  applied  to  concrete  conditions  his  teaching  led 
to  unavoidable  difficulty.  Facts  conflicted  with  theory, 
and  it  became  a  serious  problem  how  to  adjust  the  one 
to  the  other.  The  problem  might  be  temporarily  post- 
poned by  a  denial  of  the  facts,  but  this  method  could  not 
long  prove  satisfactory. 

The  times  demanded  that  the  subject  of  suffering  both 
as  related  to  the  nation  and  the  individual  be  dealt  with 
in  a  more  thoroughgoing  way  than  had  yet  been  done. 
Especially  was  this  true  after  the  fall  of  Jerusalem  in 
B.  C.  586.  In  response  to  this  demand  there  appeared 
"two  Hebrew  writers  of  supreme  intellectual  and  spiritual 
power."  ^®  The  first  lived  toward  the  close  of  the  exile. 
His  name  is  unknown,  but  his  utterances  are  preserved  in 
the  latter  part  of  the  book  of  Isaiah,  and  hence  he  is  com- 

"18.  3if. 

"  James  Strahan,  The  Book  of  Job,  p.  3. 

282 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  SUFFERING 

monly  known  as  Deutero-Isaiah.  The  problem  of  suf- 
fering as  it  presented  itself  to  his  mind  had  to  do  with 
the  nation.  It  may  be  that  the  Suffering  Servant  whom 
he  describes  originally  referred  to  some  individual  to 
whom  Messianic  significance  was  ascribed.^*^  But  in  their 
present  context  the  socalled  Servant-passages^^  manifestly 
refer  to  Israel.  Israel  had  suffered  grievously.  These 
sufferings  were  due  in  part  to  her  sins,^^  but  only  in  part. 
To  some  extent  they  were  like  the  sufferings  of  Jeremiah, 
the  sufferings  of  a  martyr.^^  Israel  had  been  loyal  to  her 
divine  mission,  and  hence  had  been  subject  to  bitter  per- 
secution. But  this  did  not  suffice  as  an  explanation  of  her 
afflictions.  Deutero-Isaiah  saw  in  them  something  more, 
a  new  factor,  unmentioned  before:  they  were  vicarious 
and  redemptive. ^^  To  outward  appearances  exiled  Israel 
was  like  one  "stricken,  smitten  of  God,  and  afflicted." 
But  her  restoration  made  it  evident  that  such  was  not  ac- 
tually the  case.  Israel  was  not  a  special  object  of  the 
divine  disfavor.  Rather  was  her  exile  the  means  through 
which  the  knowledge  of  the  true  God  was  being  brought 
to  the  idolatrous  heathen.  This  they  recognized,  and 
hence  they  are  represented  as  saying  that  Israel  was 
wounded  for  their  transgressions  and  bruised  for  their 
iniquities.  The  sufferings  that  befell  Israel  ought  to  have 
fallen  on  them.  And  not  only  were  her  sufferings  thus 
vicarious.  They  also  served  a  redemptive  purpose.  They 
were  a  means  of  healing,  a  chastisement  that  won  for  the 

"°  E.  Sellin  first  suggested  Zerubbabel  and  then  later  Jehoiachin, 
whose  long  imprisonment  and  final  release  (2  Kings  25.  27-30) 
might  conceivably  be  figuratively  described  in  Isa.  53. 

"42.  1-4;  49,  1-6;  50.  4-9;  52.  13  to  53.  12. 

"40.  2;  42.  24f. ;  43.  22-28;  50.  I. 

""so.  5-9- 

"53-4-6. 

283 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

heathen  peace  of  soul.  The  very  fact  that  Israel's  suffer- 
ings were  undeserved,  that  they  were  endured  for  others, 
brought  home  to  the  heathen  a  poignant  consciousness  of 
their  own  sins,  and  wrought  in  them  a  change  of  heart. 
It  led  to  repentance  and  confession,  and  to  the  recogni- 
tion of  Israel's  God  as  God  of  all  the  world.  Such  an  end 
might  well  justify  and  sanctify  any  affliction  and  any 
sacrifice.  No  deeper  or  higher  thought  concerning  suf- 
fering is  anywhere  to  be  found. 

It  is  strange  that  this  profound  conception  of  suffering 
as  vicarious  and  redemptive  seems  to  have  been  without 
effect  upon  the  later  development  of  Hebrew  thought. 
Nowhere  else  in  the  Old  Testament  is  there  any  reference 
to  it.*^^  Not  even  the  second  of  the  two  Hebrew  writers 
above  referred  to,  the  author  of  the  book  of  Job,  takes 
note  of  it.  The  reason  perhaps  is  that  the  idea  of  vicari- 
ous suffering  did  not  admit  of  such  obvious  application 
to  an  individual  like  Job  as  to  the  nation.  Some  scholars, 
it  is  true,  see  in  Job  "a.  type  of  the  godly  portion  of  the 
nation,"  ^®  and  look  upon  him  as  representing  "somewhat 
the  same  thing  which  the  servant  in  Deutero-Isaiah  repre- 
sents— the  ideal  Israel,  or  .  .  .  the  faithful  Israel  in 
captivity  and  humiliation."  ®^  But  there  is  nothing  in 
the  text  to  support  this  view.  "It  is  not  with  the  nation 
that  the  poet  is  concerned,  but  with  the  individual,  not  with 
Israel  but  with  man,  not  with  God's  discipline  of  his  peo- 
ple, but  with  his  government  of  the  world."  ®^ 

'^It  is  not  again  referred  to  or  employed  until  4  Mace.  i.  11;  6. 
29;  17.  21  f. 

**  A.  B.  Davidson,  The  Theology  of  the  Old  Testament,  p.  457f. 

*^  J.  P.  Peters,  The  Religion  of  the  Hebrews,  p.  332. 

**A.  S.  Peake,  The  Problem  of  Suffering  in  the  Old  Testament, 
p.  83f. 

284 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  SUFFERING 

When  the  book  of  Job  was  written  we  do  not  know, 
but  it  was  probably  a  century  or  two  after  the  time  of 
Deutero-Isaiah.  The  author  takes  up  the  problem  of 
suffering  where  it  had  been  left  by  Ezekiel.  Ezekiel  had 
disposed  of  the  problem  by  denying  the  facts  upon  which 
it  was  based.  The  wicked,  he  contended,  did  not  prosper, 
and  the  righteous  did  not  suffer.  Suffering  was,  conse- 
quently, an  evidence  of  sin.  This  became  the  orthodox 
doctrine.  In  its  positive  form  it  is  frequently  expressed. 
It  constitutes  *'the  burden  of  many  of  the  psalms  and  of 
the  whole  book  of  Proverbs,  as  well  as  the  perpetually 
recurrent  moral  of  all  the  Hebrew  histories."  We  read 
that 

"evildoers  shall  be  cut  off; 
But  those  that  wait  for  Jehovah,  they  shall  inherit 
the  land."  ^9 

"Behold,  the  righteous  shall  be  recompensed  in  the 
earth ; 
How  much  more  the  wicked  and  the  sinner !"  ''^ 

In  this  doctrine  there  is  no  doubt  much  truth,  but  when 
applied  in  such  a  way  as  to  teach  that  all  suffering  pro- 
ceeds from  sin  it  comes  into  glaring  conflict  with  the  facts 
of  life.  And  here  it  is  that  the  author  of  Job  takes  his 
start.  It  is  his  fundamental  contention  that  the  traditional 
doctrine  is  false.  The  righteous  do  suffer  and  the  wicked 
do  prosper.  And  the  suffering  and  the  prosperity  are  not 
merely  of  brief  duration.  They  often  continue  until 
death."^! 


"'  Psa.  37.  9. 
"Prov.  II.  31. 
"Job  21.  7-34. 

285 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

But  if  this  be  so,  what  function  does  suffering  fulfill 
in  the  life  of  the  righteous?  Two  positive  answers  are 
given  in  the  book  of  Job.  The  first  is  found  in  the 
prologue.  Here  we  are  told  that  the  afi^lictions  of  Job 
were  a  test  of  his  righteousness.  They  v/ere  an  attempt  to 
determine  whether  his  loyalty  to  God  was  sincere,  whether 
it  was  devotion  to  him  for  his  own  sake,  or  whether  it 
was  based  on  self-interest.  The  result  of  the  testing  was 
a  proof  of  the  genuineness  of  Job's  piety.  "The  words, 
'Though  he  slay  me,  yet  will  I  trust  him'  ^^ — it  is  pretty 
generally  agreed — do  not  represent  what  Job  said  or 
could  have  said  in  that  particular  context;  but  they  do 
represent  the  whole  attitude  of  the  man."  ^^  His  piety 
stood  far  above  utilitarian  considerations.  It  was  an 
expression  of  pure  ethical  idealism.  And  what  proved 
it  to  be  such  was  the  sufferings  he  endured.  They  showed 
that  he  was  quite  willing  to  serve  God  for  nought.  An- 
other function  performed  by  suffering  is  that  of  disciplin- 
ing and  refining  the  life  of  the  righteous.    Says  Eliphaz: 

"Happy  is  the  man  whom  God  correcteth; 
Therefore  despise  not  thou  the  chastening  of  the 

Almighty. 
For  he  maketh  sore,  and  bindeth  up ; 
He  woundeth,  and  his  hands  make  whole."  '* 

This  idea  was  elaborated  still  further  by  Elihu.'^^  It  was 
not  strictly  applicable  in  Job's  case,  but  it  nevertheless 
expresses  an  important  truth.  Suffering  does  often 
deepen,  enrich,  and  mellow  the  lives  of  those  who  accept 

"  13-  15- 

"J.  E.  McFadyen,  The  Problem  of  Pain:  A  Study  in  the  Book 
of  Job,  p.  287. 
"5-  17-18. 
'"SS-  15-30;  36.  8-21. 

286 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  SUFFERING 

it  in  the  right  spirit.    It  is,  then,  not  an  unmixed  evil.    It 
has  its  place  even  in  the  life  of  the  righteous. 

But  while  these  considerations  have  their  value,  they  by 
no  means  fully  solve  our  problem.  The  suffering  of  the 
righteous  still  has  to  it  unplumbed  depths,  and  the  book 
of  Job  frankly  confesses  its  inability  to  sound  them.  It 
does,  however,  make  one  or  two  further  suggestions  that 
should  not  be  overlooked.  One  is  that  suffering  has  a 
purpose  in  human  life  whether  we  are  able  to  discern  it  or 
not.  This  is  implied  in  the  prologue  and  also  in  the 
speeches  of  the  Almighty.  What  takes  place  in  the  heav- 
enly council  we  cannot  ourselves  observe,  and  the  universe 
itself  is  so  vast  and  intricate  that  it  would  be  folly  for  us 
to  insist  on  comprehending  it  in  its  every  detail.  But  that 
the  suffering  of  the  righteous  does  have  a  place  in  the  di- 
vine plan,  that  it  does  have  a  meaning,  is  guaranteed  by 
the  very  character  of  God  himself.  The  wisdom  and  love 
manifest  in  nature  as  a  whole  assure  us  that  our  afflictions 
are  not  purposeless.  What  their  purpose  is  we  may  not 
understand,  but  where  we  cannot  understand  we  can 
always  trust.  Then,  too,  there  is  the  suggestion  that 
death  does  not  close  the  case.  In  one  supreme  moment 
Job  rises  to  the  assurance  that  the  justice  denied  him 
here  will  be  granted  him  in  the  world  beyond.^®  This 
assurance  did  not  apparently  remain  with  him,  but  the 
door  of  hope  thus  opened  was  one  through  which  many  a 
suffering  and  sorrowing  heart  was  destined  to  walk  in  the 
ages  to  come. 

In  spite  of  Job's  vigorous  attack  upon  it  the  traditional 
doctrine  concerning  suffering  continued  to  be  widely  held, 
as  we  see  from  the  later  strata  of  the  book  of  Proverbs. 

"  19-  2Sff. 

287 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

Adversity  and  wickedness,  on  the  one  hand,  and  pros- 
perity and  righteousness,  on  the  other,  were  supposed  to 
go  together.  But  this  was  a  teaching  which  it  was  in- 
creasingly difficult  to  hold.  Pessimists  like  the  author  of 
Ecclesiastes  rejected  it  outright,"^  and  the  apocalyptists 
were  forced  to  look  to  the  future  for  its  realization.  The 
latter  standpoint  is  represented  by  Psalm  37,  It  is  here 
repeatedly  insisted  that  the  wicked  will  soon  be  cut  off 
(verses  2,  9,  22,  28,  34,  38),  and  the  righteous  will 
then  inherit  the  land  (verses  9,  11,  22,  29,  34).  God 
will  before  long  intervene  in  a  miraculous  way  in  the 
world,  and  the  injustices  that  now  prevail  will  then  be 
righted. 

Besides  this  psalm  there  are  two  others  that  also  deal 
specifically  with  our  problem,  the  forty-ninth  and  seventy- 
third.  These  psalms,  like  the  thirty-seventh,  look  to  the 
future  for  their  source  of  comfort,  but  they  find  it  not  in 
an  imminent  catastrophe  but  in  life  after  death.  Ac- 
cording to  Psalm  49  the  wicked  in  spite  of  their  wealth 
cannot  escape  death  but  are  compelled  to  go  down  into 
the  dim  underworld.  The  psalmist  himself,  however,  has 
the  assurance  that  after  death  God  will  take  him  to  live 
with  himself.  In  Psalm  '^^^  the  contrast  is  made  still  more 
emphatic.  The  wicked  in  the  world  beyond  are  here 
represented  as  cast  down  to  ruin  and  utterly  consumed 
with  terrors,  while  the  psalmist  himself  is  received  up 
into  glory.  But  even  more  significant  than  this  thought 
is  the  author's  vivid  consciousness  of  the  overshadowing 
presence  of  God: 

"Whom  have  I  in  heaven  hut  thee? 
And  there  is  none  upon  earth  that  I  desire  besides  thee." 

"7.  15;  8.  14;  9-2. 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  SUFFERING 

These  words  give  us  "a  wonderful  picture  of  the  soul 
in  deep,  untroubled  fellowship  with  God,  so  deep  that 
death  cannot  sever  it,  so  perfect  that  heaven  itself  can 
add  nothing  to  it.  .  .  .  Nowhere  else  in  the  Old  Testa- 
ment is  the  essence  of  religion  set  forth  with  such  power 
and  such  beauty,  no  passage  makes  so  deep  an  appeal  to 
our  inmost  heart."  '^^ 

We  do  not,  it  is  true,  have  here  a  formal  solution  of 
the  problem  of  suffering.  Such  a  solution,  indeed,  is 
impossible.  But  we  have  something  better:  we  have  an 
attitude  of  soul,  a  spiritual  experience,  by  means  of  which 
the  problem  is  transcended.  It  is  good  to  know  that  our 
sufferings  may  be  a  trial  of  our  faith,  a  test  of  our  right- 
eousness, that  they  may  in  the  providence  of  God  be  vicari- 
ous and  redemptive,  that  they  have  a  disciplinary  value, 
and  that  they  will  ultimately  give  way  to  a  happier  future ; 
but  it  is  better  still  to  have  a  vision  of  God  so  rapturous 
that  the  sufferings  of  the  present  lose  their  sting,  and  life 
is  permitted  to  go  on  in  unruffled  peace.  It  was  such  an 
experience  toward  which  Jeremiah  and  Job  struggled,  to 
which  the  author  of  Psalm  y^y  attained,  and  which  Jesus 
promised  his  disciples  when  he  said,  "Peace  I  leave  with 
you ;  my  peace  I  give  unto  you :  not  as  the  world  giveth, 
give  I  unto  you"  (John  14.  27). 

"A.  S.  Peake,  The  Problem  of  Suffering  in  the  Old  Testament, 
p.  117. 


CHAPTER  XIII 

FORGIVENESS  AND  ATONEMENT 

Sin,  as  the  Old  Testament  writers  conceived  it,  was 
something  more  than  "moral  growing  pains."  It  carried 
with  it  the  idea  of  alienation  from  God.  This  sense  of 
alienation  may  originally  have  been  due  to  a  purely  ex- 
ternal cause,  some  misfortune  or  physical  affliction.  It 
may  have  had  no  connection  with  moral  shortcoming. 
But  it  was  nevertheless  real,  and  it  was  practically  uni- 
versal. Suffering  and  adversity  spoke  to  primitive  men 
generally  of  an  offended  deity.  The  evils  of  life  were 
themselves  an  evidence  of  the  divine  displeasure,  and  they 
could  be  removed  only  by  winning  back  the  divine  favor. 
In  times  of  need  it  became,  therefore,  a  matter  of  special 
interest  to  secure  the  divine  forgiveness;  and  the  more 
urgent  the  need,  the  deeper  and  more  permanent  the  con- 
sciousness of  sin,  the  more  important  became  everything 
that  had  to  do  with  forgiveness  and  atonement  in  the  reli- 
gious life  and  thought  of  men.  In  our  day  it  is  said  that 
the  message  of  forgiveness  is  "less  and  less  able  to  stir 
any  deep  interest  in  the  average  man  or  to  attract  the  at- 
tention of  the  mass  of  the  people.  It  seems  to  strike  them 
as  an  irrelevant  message :  it  is  not  what  they  want,  it  does 
not  meet  any  need  of  which  they  are  vividly  conscious." 
It  is  at  the  best  "a  symbolical  recognition  of  the  idea  that 
sin  is  something  man  should  not  brood  over,  but  some- 
thing which  is  to  be  worked  off,  by  thinking  as  little  as 
possible  about  sin  as  a  religious  problem."  ^     But  if  this 

'  W.  E.  Orchard,  Modern  Theories  of  Sin,  pp.  137,  I38f. 

290 


FORGIVENESS  AND  ATONEMENT 

be  the  modern  mood,  it  stands  far  removed  from  that 
which  prevailed  in  ancient  Judaism  and  early  Christian- 
ity. In  the  Bible  forgiveness  and  atonement  are  ideas  of 
central  importance. 

The  close  connection  which  in  ancient  Israel  was  sup- 
posed to  exist  between  sin  and  suffering  led  naturally  to 
the  view  that  forgiveness  manifests  itself  in  the  improve- 
ment of  one's  physical  or  material  condition.  As  affliction 
was  a  sign  of  the  divine  displeasure,  so  its  removal  was 
evidence  of  the  divine  forgiveness.  The  forgiveness  of 
sins  as  a  purely  spiritual  experience  unrelated  to  the  out- 
ward fortunes  of  life  lay  beyond  the  range  of  at  least 
early  Israelitic  thought.  Sin  -and  punishment  were  so 
intimately  bound  up  together  that  the  forgiveness  of  the 
one  carried  with  it  the  removal  of  the  other,  and  vice 
versa.  In  this  day  we  deem  it  important  to  distinguish 
"between  forgiveness  as  the  removal  of  personal  displac- 
ence  and  forgiveness  as  the  canceling  of  natural  conse- 
quences." "Forgiveness,"  we  are  told,  "does  not  cancel 
consequences.  ...  So  long  as  one  wishes  to  be  saved 
not  from  sin  but  from  the  penalty  of  sin,  there  can  be  no 
salvation  for  him.  .  .  ,  True  salvation  is  from  sin,  not 
from  penalty."  ^  But  this  sharp  distinction  between  sin 
and  penalty  the  early  Israelite  did  not  make.  Salvation,  as 
he  conceived  it,  meant  primarily  deliverance  from  the  tem- 
poral and  material  ills  of  life.  It  meant  for  the  nation 
deliverance  from  Egypt,^  victory  over  its  enemies,*  re- 
turn from  exile,^  and  general  prosperity.^    For  the  indi- 


B.  P.  Bowne,  Studies  in  Christianity,  p.  I56f. 

Exod.  14.  30,  J;  15.  2. 
'  I  Sam.  9.  16;  2  Sam.  3.  18;  Deut.  20.  2-4. 
'Jer.  23.  5-8;  46.  27;  Psa.  106.  47. 
'i  Sam  10.  19;  Psa.  118.  25. 

291 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

vidual  it  likewise  meant  escape  from  danger/  recovery 
from  sickness,^  and  enjoyment  of  the  good  things  of  life.® 
Among  these  good  things  forgiveness  of  sin  was  no  doubt 
one.  But  it  was  a  deduction  from  the  outward  blessings 
of  life  rather  than  a  distinct  inward  experience.  It  did 
not,  it  would  seem,  necessarily  imply  a  complete  canceling 
of  the  penalty  of  sin.  In  Exod.  34.  7  we,  for  instance, 
read  of  Yahweh  as  "forgiving  iniquity  and  transgression 
and  sin,  although  he  does  not  leave  it  unpunished."  ^"^ 
Punishment  and  forgiveness  did  not  thus  form  a  com- 
plete antithesis.  Death  excluded  the  thought  of  forgive- 
ness, but  a  less  extreme  penalty  apparently  did  not.  This 
is  illustrated  in  the  case  of  David.  Nathan  announces 
that  a  certain  punishment  will  be  meted  out  to  him  be- 
cause of  his  sin,  and  then  adds,  "Jehovah  also  hath  put 
away  thy  sin;  thou  shalt  not  die."  ^^  Forgiveness  of  sin 
did  not  here  carry  with  it  the  complete  removal  of  the 
just  penalty.  But  this  conception  of  forgiveness  received 
only  isolated  expression.  In  general,  suffering  was  looked 
upon  as  a  penalty  for  sin,  and  only  the  removal  of  the 
penalty  could  give  rise  to  the  consciousness  of  forgive- 
ness. 

A  more  independent  conception  of  forgiveness  was 
only  very  gradually  developed.  Two  different  stages,  or 
perhaps,  rather,  factors,  in  its  development  may  be  dis- 
tinguished. First,  the  prophetic  stress  on  the  ethical 
requirements  of  Yahweh,  both  objective  and  subjective, 

^  2  Sam.  22.  3f. 

*Isa.  38.  iff. ;  2  Sam.  12.  i6ff. 
*Gen.  39.  3;  Job  30.  15. 

"  See  C.  F.  Kent's  translation  in  The  Student's  Old  Testament. 
Compare  Num.  14,  18. 
"2  Sam.  12.  13. 

292 


FORGIVENESS  AND  ATONEMENT 

tended  to  give  to  the  inner  life  of  the  soul  an  importance 
it  had  not  had  before.  Forgiveness  of  sins  and  purity 
of  heart  came  to  have  a  value  in  and  of  themselves.  They 
might  lead  to  outward  fortune,  but  altogether  apart  from 
that  they  had  a  worth  of  their  own.  Regeneration  of  soul 
was  a  good  to  be  sought  for  its  own  sake.  Salvation  did 
not  consist  simply  in  deliverance  from  the  consequences 
of  sin,  but  in  deliverance  from  sin  itself.  We  first  find 
this  clearly  expressed  in  Jeremiah.  As  the  prophet  real- 
ized the  weakness  and  sinfulness  of  his  own  heart,  he 
cried:  "Heal  me,  O  Jehovah,  and  I  shall  be  healed;  save 
me,  and  I  shall  be  saved."  ^^  The  salvation  for  which  he 
here  prays  is  manifestly  an  inner  process,  a  healing  of  the 
soul.  It  is  a  similar  conception  also  that  appears  in  his 
description  of  the  new  covenant,  a  covenant  to  be  written 
in  the  hearts  of  the  people.  "I  will  forgive,"  says  Yah- 
weh,  "their  iniquity,  and  their  sin  will  I  remember  no 
more."  ^^  Even  more  distinctly  is  this  thought  expressed 
in  Ezekiel.  'T  will  sprinkle,"  we  read,  "clean  water  upon 
you,  and  ye  shall  be  clean :  from  all  your  filthiness,  and 
from  all  your  idols,  will  I  cleanse  you.  A  new  heart  also 
will  I  give  you,  and  a  new  spirit  will  I  put  within  you; 
and  I  will  take  away  the  stony  heart  out  of  your  flesh, 
and  I  will  give  you  a  heart  of  flesh.  And  I  will  put  my 
Spirit  within  you,  and  cause  you  to  walk  in  my  statutes. 
.  .  .  And  I  will  save  you  from  all  your  unclean- 
nesses."  ^*  In  Deutero-Isaiah  this  idea  is  also  made 
prominent.  Forgiveness  of  sins  appears  as  the  chief 
blessing  of  the  Messianic  age.  "I,  even  I,  am  he  that 
blotteth  out  thy  transgressions  for  mine  own  sake ;  I  have 

"  17.  14. 
"Jer.  31.  34 
"  3,6.  25-29. 

293 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

blotted  out,  as  a  thick  cloud,  thy  transgressions,  and,  as  a 
cloud,  thy  sins :  return  unto  me ;  for  I  have  redeemed 
thee."  ^^  But  more  strikingly  still  is  the  thought  of  for- 
giveness and  regeneration  expressed  in  Psalm  51 : 

Purify  me  with  hyssop,  and  I  shall  be  clean ; 
Wash  me,  and  I  shall  be  whiter  than  snow.    .    .    . 
Create  in  me  a  clean  heart,  O  God ; 
And  renew  a  right  spirit  within  me. 
Cast  me  not  away  from  thy  presence ; 
And  take  not  thy  holy  Spirit  from  me. 
Restore  unto  me  the  joy  of  thy  salvation, 
And  uphold  me  with  a  willing  spirit"  (verses  7, 
10-12). 

Another  factor  that  contributed  to  the  differentiation 
of  the  assurance  of  divine  forgiveness  from  the  out- 
ward experiences  of  life  was  the  Messianic  hope.  This 
hope  implied  that  in  the  existing  order  rewards  and  pun- 
ishments were  not  meted  out  justly  either  to  nations  or 
individuals.  In  the  better  and  not  distant  future  it  would 
be  different.  But  at  present  outward  fortune  was  no 
certain  test  of  one's  status  in  the  sight  of  God.  And  if 
so,  a  change  of  attitude  toward  God  would  not  necessarily 
be  accompanied  by  an  immediate  change  in  the  physical 
or  material  conditions  of  one's  life.  God  might  conceiv- 
ably forgive  a  man  his  sins,  and  yet  allow  him  for  a  time 
at  least  to  remain  subject  to  some  form  of  adversity. 
This  idea  is  manifestly  implied  in  the  Messianic  hope,  and 
it  is  also  implied  in  such  interpretations  of  suffering  as 
are  found  in  Deutero-Isaiah  and  the  book  of  Job.  If  suf- 
fering be  vicarious  and  redemptive,  if  it  is  a  test  of  one's 

"  Isa.  43.  25 ;  44.  22. 

294 


FORGIVENESS  AND  ATONEMENT 

righteousness,  it  is  evident  that  its  removal  is  not  neces- 
sary to  the  consciousness  of  forgiveness  and  of  the  divine 
favor.  These  spiritual  blessings  may  be  enjoyed  without 
reference  to  the  outward  experiences  of  life.  But  while 
the  Old  Testament  points  forward  to  this  truth,  and 
while  some  of  the  Hebrew  saints,  such  as  Jeremiah,  Job, 
and  the  author  of  Psalm  y^^,  anticipated  it  in  their  own 
experience,  it  cannot  be  said  to  have  been  fully  grasped 
in  Old  Testament  times.  The  consciousness  of  sin  and 
forgiveness  continued  to  be  more  or  less  closely  connected 
with  external  fortune.  Even  Psalm  51  seems  to  have  had 
as  its  background  suffering  of  some  kind,  either  that  of 
the  nation  or  of  the  author,  probably  the  latter  (verse  8). 

The  ultimate  ground  of  forgiveness  was  the  divine 
mercy.  This  was  the  teaching  of  the  Old  Testament  as  a 
whole,  the  Law  as  well  as  the  Prophets.  Sacrifice,  what- 
ever value  it  may  have  had,  was  "the  fruit  of  grace,  not 
its  root."  Yahweh  was  a  God  of  mercy;  he  was  such 
by  nature.^^  He  was  also  righteous.  But  righteousness 
did  not  exclude  mercy;  it,  rather,  included  it.  Yahweh 
was  "a  just  God  and  a  Saviour."  ^'^  The  two  qualities 
went  together.  There  was  nothing  in  the  nature  of  Yah- 
weh as  such  that  made  him  reluctant  to  forgive  sin.  Not 
even  his  wrath  excluded  the  thought  of  mercy. ^^  "The 
conception,"  as  G.  B.  Stevens  says,  "that  retributive  jus- 
tice is  the  fundamental,  essential  quality  of  God,  and 
that  mercy  is  a  secondary  and  optional  attribute  whose 
operation  has  to  be  secured  or  provided  for  by  means  of 
some  'plan'  or  'scheme,'  is  not  only  without  warrant  in 

"Psa.  103.  8ff.;  Joel  2.  13. 

"  Isa.  45.  21 ;  compare  Exod.  34.  6f . ;  Num.  14.  18. 

"Hab.  3.  2- 

295 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

the  Old  Testament,  but  is  entirely  irreconcilable  with  the 
Hebrew  idea  of  God  in  the  classic  period  of  Israel's  reli- 
gion. It  is  more  accordant  with  the  conceptions  of  late 
Jewish  theology  as  illustrated  in  popular  Pharisaism."  ^^ 
In  the  Old  Testament  longsuffering  and  compassion  is 
represented  as  a  fundamental  characteristic  of  the  divine 
mind.  Wrath  is  a  mere  affection,  a  transient  feeling. ^° 
It  does  not  express  the  true  nature  and  essence  of  God. 
While  capable  of  wrath,  Yahweh  is  slow  to  anger,^^  and 
does  not  keep  his  anger  forever.^^ 

The  gracious  disposition  of  Yahweh  was  at  first  mani- 
fested almost  exclusively  within  and  toward  Israel.  The 
rationale  of  this  special  relation  to  Israel  is  nowhere 
given.  At  times  it  seems  to  be  the  result  of  a  sovereign 
and  arbitrary  choice.  'T  will  be  gracious,"  says  Yahweh, 
"to  whom  I  will  be  gracious,  and  will  show  mercy  on 
whom  I  will  show  mercy."  ^^  The  special  favor  shown 
Israel  is  expressed  in  various  ways.  It  is,  for  instance, 
said  that  Yahweh  defers  his  anger,  saves  Israel,  and  for- 
gives her  sins  "for  his  own  sake"  or  "for  his  name's 
sake."  ^*  "I,  even  I,  am  he  that  blotteth  out  thy  trans- 
gressions for  mine  ow^n  sake ;  and  I  will  not  remember  thy 
sins."  ^^  The  point  to  such  statements  as  these  is  that 
Yahweh  has  a  world  purpose  and  that  the  accomplish- 
ment of  that  purpose  required  him  to  show  to  Israel  a  de- 
gree of  favor  that  she  did  not  deserve.     Her  sins  were 


"  The  Christian  Doctrine  of  Salvation,  p.  29. 
*•  Psa.  30.  5. 

"Neh.  9.  17;  Jonah  4.  2;  Nah.  i.  3. 
^  *'Mic.  7.  18;  Jer.  3.  12. 
**  Exod.  33.  19,  J- 

**  Isa.  48.  9,  II ;  Psa.  106.  8;  Ezek.  20.  9,  14,  22. 
« Isa.  43.  25. 

296 


FORGIVENESS  AND  ATONEMENT 

forgiven  and  she  was  redeemed,  not  because  she  had  fully 
met  the  conditions  of  forgiveness  and  redemption,  but 
because  only  in  this  way  could  Yahweh  achieve  his  pur- 
pose and  cause  his  name  to  be  honored  among  the  nations 
of  the  world.  If  he  had  failed  to  redeem  Israel,  his  fail- 
ure would  have  been  attributed  to  weakness,  and  his  name 
would  thus  have  been  profaned  among  the  heathen.^® 
It  was  consequently  for  his  own  sake  that  he  deferred  his 
anger  and  forgave  Israel  her  sins. 

Another  motive  to  the  divine  forgiveness  occasionally 
referred  to  in  the  Old  Testament  is  Yahweh's  regard  for 
the  patriarchs  and  for  David.  Moses,  for  instance,  thus 
prays :  "O  Lord  Jehovah,  destroy  not  thy  people  and  thine 
inheritance.  .  .  .  Remember  thy  servants,  Abraham, 
Isaac,  and  Jacob;  look  not  unto  the  stubbornness  of  this 
people,  nor  to  their  wickedness,  nor  to  their  sin."  ^"^  And 
in  2  Kings  we  read  that  "Jehovah  would  not  destroy 
Judah,  for  David  his  servant's  sake."  ^®  "I  will  defend," 
says  Yahweh,  "this  city  to  save  it,  for  mine  own  sake,  and 
for  my  servant  David's  sake."  ^^  Back  of  this  represen- 
tation there  probably  lay  the  idea  that  the  patriarchs  and 
David  were  representative  of  ideal  Israel,  and  that  ideal 
Israel  was  the  bearer  of  the  divine  purpose  in  the  world. 
But  ideal  Israel  could  not  accomplish  its  purpose  apart 
from  actual  Israel.  For  the  patriarchs'  sake,  therefore, 
for  the  sake  of  ideal  Israel,  it  pleased  God  to  forgive 
actual  Israel,  the  Israel  of  history.  The  feeling  that  lay 
back  of  this  thought  seems  to  have  been  akin  to  that  ex- 
pressed by  the  poet  Browning:  "What  I  aspired  to  be, 

"°Ezek.  36.  16-23;  Deut.  32.  26-27;  Num.  14.  15-20,  J. 

"  Deut.  9.  26,  27;  compare  Exod.  32.  12-13. 

^'8.19. 

*'  19.  34;  compare  i  Kings  11.  13,  32;  15.  4, 

297 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

and  was  not,  comforts  me,"  and  he  might  have  added, 
"assures  me  of  the  divine  favor," 

But  the  two  motives  to  forgiveness  just  stated  appear 
only  occasionally  and  incidentally  in  the  Old  Testament. 
The  one  on  which  the  prophets  lay  almost  exclusive  stress, 
and  which  constitutes  the  only  rational  and  ethical  con- 
dition of  forgiveness,  is  repentance  and  reformation. 
This,  of  course,  includes  faith.  But  faith  did  not  receive 
such  emphasis  in  the  Old  Testament  as  in  the  New.  Isaiah 
repeatedly  urges  the  need  of  faith  in  Yahweh  as  against 
foreign  alliances  and  trust  in  merely  human  powers.^**  In 
Habakkuk  we  have  the  pregnant  saying  that  the  just  shall 
live  by  his  faith  or,  rather,  faithfulness.^^  And  of  Abra- 
ham it  is  said  that  "he  believed  in  Jehovah;  and  he  reck- 
oned it  to  him  for  righteousness."  ^^  But  no  proper  doc- 
trine of  faith  in  the  later  New  Testament  sense  of  the 
term  is  to  be  found  in  the  Old  Testament,  There  is  no 
antithesis  between  faith  and  works.  Yet  faith  in  Yahweh 
is  everywhere  assumed  as  a  duty  and  as  a  condition  of 
reconciliation  with  him.  The  call  to  repentance  and  obe- 
dience was  also  a  call  to  faith.  It  was,  however,  the 
former  rather  than  the  latter  that  was  stressed  by  the 
prophets.  They  were  constantly  summoning  the  people 
to  return  unto  Yahweh  and  to  obey  his  voice.^^  "Seek 
good,  and  not  evil,  that  ye  may  live,"  was  the  cry  of 
Amos;^^  and  this  was  also  the  burden  of  the  prophets  as 
a  whole.    Only  a  complete  change  of  life  could  win  back 


"7.  9;  28.  16;  30.  15. 
"  2.  4. 

'^Gen.  15.  6,  J, 
"  "Hos.  14.  i;  Jer,  3.  22;  11.  7;  Ezek.  33.  il. 
"S-  14- 

298 


FORGIVENESS  AND  ATONEMENT 

the  divine  favor.  No  fitful  repentance  would  suffice.^" 
There  must  be  a  radical  change  of  character,^®  an  earnest, 
whole-hearted  searching  after  God.^"'' 

Where  these  conditions  were  met,  there  was  from  the 
prophetic  point  of  view  no  further  obstacle  to  the  divine 
forgiveness.  Yet  we  do  find  in  the  prophetic  and  extra- 
ritual  literature  of  the  Old  Testament  other  factors 
that  at  times  entered  into  the  bestowal  of  forgiveness. 
There  was,  for  instance,  the  intercession  of  devout 
and  righteous  men.  Abraham  interceded  for  Sodom; 
and  his  prayer,  while  it  did  not  effect  the  deliv- 
erance of  the  city,  resulted  in  the  rescue  of  Lot.^*  Moses 
interceded  for  Israel  at  the  time  when  the  golden  calf 
was  made;  and  Yahweh,  we  read,  "repented  of  the  evil 
which  he  said  he  would  do  unto  his  people,"  ^^  Amos 
besought  the  divine  forgiveness  when  the  existence  of 
Israel  was  threatened,  and  twice  his  prayer  was  an- 
swered.^°  Jeremiah  also  repeatedly  interceded  for  the 
people,  but  in  his  case  it  is  implied  that  the  time  for  inter- 
cession was  past.'*^  No  rationale  of  intercessory  prayer 
is  given.  Ezekiel  virtually  denies  its  efficacy.^^  But  in 
the  Old  Testament  as  a  whole  it  is  assumed  as  an  estab- 
lished practice.  The  effectual  fervent  prayer  of  a  right- 
eous man  was  supposed  to  avail  much  in  behalf  of  the 
guilty.  A  theoretical  basis  for  this  belief,  if  such  were 
needed,  might  be  found  in  the  ancient  conception  of  the 

*^'=  Hos.  6.  1-4. 

^'Jer.  4.  3-4. 

^'  Deut.  4.  29. 

^  Gen.  18.  23-33,  J  ;  19-  29,  P. 

**  Exod.  32.  14,  J  ?  compare  32.  30-35,  E. 

""y-  1-6. 

"7.  16;  II.  14;  14.  11;  15.  I. 

"14.  12-20. 

299 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

solidarity  of  society.  But  apart  from  that  the  analogy  of 
human  experience  furnishes  an  adequate  explanation. 
Intercession  often  avails  in  the  relation  of  man  to  man; 
and  if  so,  the  ancient  saw  no  reason  why  it  should  not 
avail  also  in  the  relation  of  man  to  God. 

Another  factor  that  seems  at  times  to  have  served  as  a 
motive  to  the  divine  forgiveness  was  the  partial  punish- 
ment of  sin.  The  partial  punishment  revealed  the  divine 
wrath,  and  this  under  certain  circumstances  was  accepted 
as  sufficient.  The  best  illustration  of  this  is  furnished 
by  Phinehas  at  the  time  when  the  Israelites  were  being 
visited  by  a  severe  plague  because  of  their  whoredom  on 
the  plains  of  Moab.^^  Phinehas  slew  an  Israelite  and  a 
Midianitish  woman  whom  he  found  together  in  the  camp. 
And  "so,"  we  read,  "the  plague  was  stayed  from  the  chil- 
dren of  Israel."  Phinehas,  said  Yahweh,  "hath  turned 
my  wrath  away  from  the  children  of  Israel,  in  that  he  was 
jealous  with  my  jealousy  among  them,  so  that  I  con- 
sumed not  the  children  of  Israel  in  my  jealousy.  .  .  . 
Behold,  I  give  unto  him  my  covenant  of  peace,  .  .  . 
because  he  was  jealous  for  his  God,  and  made  atonement 
for  the  children  of  Israel."  The  infliction  of  a  partial 
penalty  by  a  man  filled  with  divine  zeal  served  to  reveal 
the  divine  wrath  in  such  a  way  that  no  further  punish- 
ment was  felt  to  be  necessary.  A  similar  idea  underlies 
the  common  Old  Testament  representation,  that  while 
Yahweh  punished  his  people  for  their  sins  he  did  not  make 
a  full  end  of  the  nation.^'*  Mercy  intervened  before  the 
punishment  was  complete.  Indeed,  in  his  grace  Yahweh 
might  even  feel  that  the  partial  penalty  he  had  inflicted  on 


**  Num.  25.  1-13. 
^'**  Amos  9.  8;  Jer.  4.  27;  5.  18;  30.  11. 


FORGIVENESS  AND  ATONEMENT 

the  people  was  more  than  they  had  merited.^^  A  full  pun- 
ishment of  sin  was  not  necessary  to  meet  the  demands  of 
the  divine  justice.  "The  idea,"  as  Skinner  says,  "that 
Yahweh's  penal  purpose  can  be  satisfied  by  a  temporary 
chastisement  is  of  the  very  essence  of  the  Old  Testament 
notion  of  forgiveness."  *^ 

Yet  another  and  more  significant  factor  that  entered 
into  the  prophetic  teaching  relative  to  forgiveness  is  found 
in  the  fifty-third  chapter  of  Isaiah.  Here  the  suffering 
innocently  borne  by  another  is  made  the  motive  of  for- 
giveness. Israel  bears  the  punishment  that  ought  to  have 
fallen  upon  the  guilty  heathen,  and  thus  makes  possible 
their  redemption.  The  effect  of  his  suffering  is  double. 
It  satisfies  the  divine  demand  for  the  punishment  of  sin, 
and  at  the  same  time  it  acts  as  a  regenerating  influence  in 
the  life  of  the  heathen.  They  are  moved  to  repentance  and 
confession  as  they  contemplate  the  Servant  voluntarily 
"pouring  out  his  soul  unto  death"  for  their  sakes.  "The 
chastisement  of  our  peace  was  upon  him;  and  with  his 
stripes  we  are  healed,"  "By  the  knowledge  of  himself 
shall  my  righteous  Servant  make  many  righteous."  How 
it  was  possible  for  the  Servant  to  suffer  for  others  is  not 
stated.  "The  vicariousness,"  says  Stevens,  "is  ethical. 
The  blood  of  this  offering  is  the  blood  of  real  life.  If  we 
are  to  use  the  word  'substitution,'  we  should  say  that  the 
substitution  here  involved  is  that  which  takes  place  when 
one  puts  himself  under  another's  burden,  and  from  love 
and  sympathy  makes  that  other's  suffering  lot  his  own."  ^'^ 
But  there  are  indications  that  the  author  looked  upon  the 

"  Isa.  40,  2. 

"  The  Book  of  the  Prophet  Isaiah,  Chapters  xl-lxvi,  p,  3, 
*'  The  Christian  Doctrine  of  Salvation,  pp.  33-34. 

301 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

sufferings  of  the  Servant  In  a  more  objective  way.  Rit- 
ualistic conceptions  are  applied  to  him.  He  is  compared 
to  the  sacrificial  lamb  (verse  7),  and  is  spoken  of  as  "a 
guilt-offering"  (verse  10).  He  is  also  manifestly  repre- 
sented as  bearing  the  penal  consequences  of  the  sins  of 
others.  "It  is  this  voluntary  suffering  of  the  righteous 
in  behalf  of  the  unrighteous  that  alone  satisfies  the  de- 
mand of  Yahweh  and  saves  the  guilty  from  the  extreme 
penalty  of  the  law."  *^  In  taking  this  view  the  author  dis- 
regards the  fact  that  punishment  to  be  just  must  be  visited 
upon  the  guilty  themselves.  He  simply  accepts  the  tradi- 
tional idea  that  suffering  is  a  punishment  for  sin,  and  then 
interprets  the  sufferings  of  the  righteous  Servant  as  a 
vicarious  atonement  for  the  sins  of  others.  The  various 
ethical  problems  involved  in  this  conception  he  does  not 
raise. 

The  important  point,  however,  is  that  we  have  here  a 
distinct  advance  beyond  the  more  purely  moralistic  con- 
ceptions of  forgiveness  that  prevail  throughout  most 
of  the  prophetic  literature.  'Tf  the  religion  of  the 
prophets,"  says  J.  K.  Mozley,  "had  culminated  in  the 
appeal  for  repentance  for  the  past  and  right  action  for 
the  future,  we  should  have  to  look  upon  them  as  sepa- 
rated by  an  unbridgeable  gulf  from  the  ideals  of  the 
legal,  priestly  cultus.  Where  repentance  and  good  works 
are  all  that  is  necessary,  there  may  be  a  religion  of 
reconciliation,  but  not  what  is  generally  understood  by 
a  religion  of  atonement."  *^  Atonement  implies  repa- 
ration, an  act  of  expiation,  and  this  we  have  in  the  suf- 
ferings of  the  Servant.  The  Servant's  sufferings  are 
not,  it  is  true,  represented  as  essential  to  forgiveness; 

**  Burton  and  Smith,  Biblical  Ideas  of  Atonement,  p.  36. 
**The  Doctrine  of  the  Atonement,  p.  25. 

302 


FORGIVENESS  AND  ATONEMENT 

but  they  did  have  the  virtue  of  effecting  within  the 
heathen  a  transformation  of  mind  and  heart.  And  this 
is  the  essential  thing  in  atonement.  "The  fundamental 
problem  is  to  find  a  way  whereby  the  righteous  God 
can  make  righteous  the  ungodly;  and  this  cannot  be 
secured  by  calling  or  declaring  them  righteous,  but 
only  by  a  spiritual  transformation."  ^^  This  transforma- 
tion, however,  cannot  be  effected  by  men  themselves. 
A  divine  act  of  grace  is  needed,  and  in  Isaiah  53  this 
act  is  represented  as  performed  through  the  Servant. 
Men  can  be  won  back  to  God  only  by  self-sacrificing  love. 
This  is  the  thought  suggested  by  the  work  of  the  Servant. 
And  when  this  thought  is  carried  up  into  the  life  of  God 
himself,  we  have  the  full  Christian  view  of  forgiveness 
and  atonement.^^ 

We  have  thus  far  dealt  chiefly  with  the  prophetic 
teaching  concerning  forgiveness,  and  hence  have  said 
nothing  concerning  sacrifices  as  a  means  of  atonement. 
It  was  one  of  the  outstanding  characteristics  of  the 
prophets  that  they  denied  to  sacrifices  any  value  in  and 
of  themselves.  When  offered  as  a  substitute  for  right- 
eousness they  were  worse  than  worthless,  an  abomination 
in  the  sight  of  God.  'T  hate,  I  despise  your  feasts,  and 
I  will  take  no  delight  in  your  solemn  assemblies."  °^ 
"Bring  no  more  vain  oblations;  incense  is  an  abomination 


""  B.  P.  Bowne,  Studies  in  Christianity,  p.  148. 

"  It  has  been  customary  to  find  the  idea  of  the  self-sacrificing 
love  of  God  in  Isa.  63.  9,  where  we  read  of  Yahweh  that  "in  all  their 
afflictions  he  was  afflicted."  But  this  reading  is  due  to  a  defective 
text.  We  should  on  the  basis  of  the  Septuagint  read:  "So  he  be- 
came to  them  a  saviour  from  all  their  distress;  it  was  no  envoy  or 
angel,  but  his  own  presence,"  etc. 
"  "  Amos  5.  21. 

303 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

unto  me."  ^^  "Did  ye  bring  unto  me  sacrifices  and  offer- 
ings in  the  wilderness  forty  years,  O  house  of  Israel?  "  ^* 
"I  spake  not  unto  your  fathers,  nor  commanded  them  in 
the  day  that  I  brought  them  out  of  the  land  of  Egypt, 
concerning  burnt-offerings  or  sacrifices."  ^^  It  was  the 
contention  of  the  preexilic  prophets  that  at  the  outset,  in 
the  classic  period  of  Israel's  religion,  sacrifices  had  little 
or  no  place.  What  Yahweh  then  required  of  the  Israel- 
ites was  simply  obedience  to  the  moral  law.  And  this 
for  the  prophets  was  normative.  The  sacrifices  of  their 
own  time  they  did  not  regard  as  evil.  The  altar  had  its 
place  in  the  temple. ^^  But  sacrifices  as  such  had  no  inde- 
pendent value.  They  were  like  prayer,  acceptable  if  of- 
fered in  the  right  spirit,  but  otherwise  worthless.  They 
were  not  looked  upon  as  in  any  way  conditioning  the 
divine  grace.  They  were  not  means  of  atonement. 
Atonement  in  the  common  sense  of  the  term  figured,  as 
we  have  seen,  only  incidentally  in  the  teaching  of  the 
prophets.  What  they  stressed  was  the  moral  conditions 
of  forgiveness.  When  these  conditions  were  met,  nothing 
more  was  needed.  At  the  same  time  they  recognized  the 
fact  that  to  meet  these  conditions  was  no  easy  matter.  To 
do  so  either  the  punishment  of  the  guilty  or  the  suffering 
of  the  righteous  seemed  necessary,  and  this  left  the  door 
open  to  some  of  the  profounder  ideas  that  underlie  the 
doctrine  of  the  atonement. 

Atonement  in  the  Old  Testament  is  associated  chiefly 
with  the  sacrificial  rites;  and  these,  while  rejected  by  the 
prophets  as  of  no  value,  figured  prominently  in  the  pop- 
ular and  legal  religion.  The  root-meaning  of  the  Hebrew 
word   for  "atone"    (kipper)    was  either  "to  cover"   or 

"^"Isa.  I.  13.  "'Jer.  7.  22. 

•-  "  Amos  5.  25.  •'*'  Isa.  6.  6. 

304 


FORGIVENESS  AND  ATONEMENT 

"wipe  out."  ^'^  The  word,  however,  is  not  used  in  the 
Old  Testament  in  its  original  literal  and  physical  mean- 
ing. It  always  has  a  metaphorical  sense.  As  applied  to 
sin,  it  means  that  sin  has  been  "covered"  or  "wiped  out" 
in  such  a  way  that  it  no  longer  arouses  the  divine  wrath. 
When  Yahv/eh  is  spoken  or  thought  of  as  "covering"  or 
"wiping  out"  sin,  kipper  is  virtually  synonymous  in  mean- 
ing with  "forgive."  It  is  in  this  sense  that  the  word  is 
commonly  used  in  the  prophetic  and  extra-ritual  litera- 
ture.^^ In  the  ritual  literature  it  is  usually  the  priest 
who  is  represented  as  doing  the  "covering"  or  "wiping 
out,"  and  in  this  case  kipper  has  about  the  force  of  "ap- 
pease," "propitiate,"  or  "atone."  ^^  The  priest  appeases 
the  divine  wrath  by  the  offering  of  a  sacrifice.  It  may 
also  be  noted  that  kipper  is  generally  regarded  as  stand- 
ing in  a  close  relation  to  the  noun  kopher,  "a  ransom," 
that  it  was  probably  a  denominative  from  it,  and  that  the 
same  general  sense  attaches  to  both  words.  Kipper  con- 
sequently carries  with  it  the  idea  that  the  appeasement 
aimed  at  is  secured  by  compensation  of  some  kind  for 
the  injuries  or  offenses  committed.®*^ 

Sacrifice  is  a  custom  that  goes  back  into  prehistoric 
antiquity.  How  it  originated  we  cannot  say.  The  Rriest's 
Code  represents  sacrifice  in  Israel  as  instituted  by  Moses 
under  divine  command,  and  recognizes  no  offering  of 
sacrifice  before  that  time.  But  this  view,  even  if  correct, 
would  apply  only  to  sacrifices  in  Israel.     Sacrifice  was  a 

"  For  an  exhaustive  discussion  of  the  word  and  its  use  in  the 
Old   Testament   see  Die  Idee   der  Suhne   im  Alien   Testament,  by 
Johannes  Herrmann. 
'^'"'  Isa.  6.  7 ;  22.  14 ;  Jer.  18.  23 ;  Psa.  65.  3 ;  78.  38. 

°*  Lev.  4.  20,  31 ;  10.  17 ;  16.  32. 

'"  I  Sam.  3.  14;  2  Sam.  21.  3f . ;  Gen.  32.  2of.,  J. 

30s 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

universal  custom  among  the  heathen.  It  has  been  held 
that  its  origin  was  due  to  a  primitive  revelation,  but  for 
this  view  there  is  no  basis.  Its  universal  prevalence  sug- 
gests that  it  must  in  some  way  have  been  a  natural  expres- 
sion of  man's  sense  of  relation  to  God. 

What  the  original  idea  was  that  lay  back  of  sacrifice 
has  been  the  subject  of  much  discussion.  No  generally 
accepted  conclusion  has  as  yet  been  reached.  Four  differ- 
ent thories  may  be  distinguished.  Of  these  the  "gift- 
theory"  is  perhaps  the  one  now  most  widely  held.®^  It 
regards  sacrifice  as  originally  a  gift  offered  to  super- 
natural beings  for  the  purpose  of  winning  their  favor  and 
overcoming  their  hostility.  Closely  related  to  this  is  the 
"homage-theory."  It  holds  that  sacrifices  were  originally 
acts  of  worship,  "the  embodied  prayers  of  men  who  think 
like  children."  They  expressed  the  various  feelings  of 
dependence,  reverence,  thanksgiving,  penitence,  trust, 
with  which  men  approach  the  higher  powers.  A  quite 
different  theory  is  that  advocated  by  Robertson  Smith,  the 
"covenant"  or  "communion"  theory.  According  to  this 
theory  sacrifice  was  originally  a  meal  of  fellowship  in 
which  the  deity  participated  along  with  his  worshipers. 
Just  as  eating  at  a  common  meal  was  regarded  by  the 
Arabians  as  binding  people  together,  so  was  it  with  the 
deity  in  his  relation  to  those  who  worshiped  him.  The 
blood  poured  out  at  the  sacrificial  meal  to  the  deity 
cemented  the  union  between  him  and  his  people.  In 
this  way  a  friendly  relationship  with  the  deity  was  main- 
tained, and  misfortune  and  divine  chastisement  were 
avoided.     Yet  another  theory  relative   to   the   original 


"As  representatives  of  this  theory  H.  Spencer,  E.  B.  Tyler, 
H.  Schultz,  and  G.  F.  Moore  may  be  named.  The  "homage-theory" 
was  advocated  by  F.  D.  Maurice  and  R.  Smend. 

306 


FORGIVENESS  AND  ATONEMENT 

meaning  of  sacrifice  is  the  "propitiatory"  or  "substitution- 
ary" theory,  according  to  which  the  penalty  due  the  sinner 
was  inflicted  on  the  sacrificial  animal.  This  theory  was  the 
one  commonly  held  in  earlier  Protestant  theology,^^  but 
it  is  now  generally  agreed  that  it  represents  too  advanced 
a  stage  of  thought  for  primitive  man. 

These  different  theories  may  at  first  seem  quite  distinct 
from  each  other,  and  it  may  seem  necessary  to  make  a 
choice  of  some  one  to  the  exclusion  of  the  others.  But  it 
is  not  improbable  that  there  is  truth  in  more  than  one  of 
them,  and  that  each  represents  a  factor  or  motive  that  at 
an  early  date  was  associated  with  the  custom  of  sacrifice. 
To  pass  from  one  of  these  motives  to  another  was  not 
difficult.  "Let  us  assume,"  says  G.  B,  Stevens,  "the  cor- 
rectness of  the  simplest  theory  of  sacrifice,  the  gift- 
theory.  But  the  idea  of  a  present  to  the  deity  is  itself  an 
act  of  homage  or  worship.  The  gift  of  what  has  value  for 
the  giver  is  made  in  recognition  of  the  superior  rights  or 
claims  of  the  divinity.  And  this  idea  of  homage,  in  turn, 
would  naturally  deepen  into  the  feeling  of  fellowship  or 
communion.  If  the  offered  gift  is  regarded  as  sacred;  if, 
for  example,  the  idea  obtains  that  there  is  some  mysteri- 
ous connection  between  the  life  of  the  divinity  and  the  life 
or  blood  of  the  animal,  then  the  conviction  will  naturally 
arise  that  in  offering  the  animal  in  sacrifice  the  worshiper 
enters  into  communion  with  the  Power  whom  he  would 
honor.  Then,  again,  when  the  sense  of  sin  is  deepened  in 
men;  when  the  conception  of  the  divine  holiness  arises 
and  man  appreciates  the  moral  separation  between  himself 
and  the  deity,  it  will  then  be  natural  that  sacrifice  should 
assume  a  more  distinct  reference  to  sin.     It  will  become 


''"  For  an  exposition  of  it  see  Fairbairn's  Typology. 

307 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

the  means  whereby  sin  is  confessed  and  reconciliation 
with  the  offended  divinity  sought.  Thus  it  would  natu- 
rally happen  that  gifts  which  in  a  more  naive  religious 
condition  were  merely  presents,  should  come  to  be  re- 
garded as  the  means  of  a  mystic  communion  or  even  as  a 
cover  or  protection  from  the  displeasure  felt  by  the  Deity 
toward  the  sins  of  his  worshipers."  ^^ 

What  we  are,  however,  directly  concerned  with  is  not 
the  primitive  idea  that  underlay  sacrifice,  but  the  idea 
or  ideas  that  underlay  sacrifice  in  Israel.  Sacrifice 
was  an  inherited  custom,  and  the  ideas  associated  with  it 
no  doubt  varied  to  some  extent  with  different  peoples  and 
from  age  to  age.  Taking  the  Old  Testament  as  a  whole, 
the  prevailing  conception  of  sacrifice  would  seem  to  be 
that  of  a  gift  or  present  to  God.  This  is  the  idea  ex- 
pressed by  the  two  general  terms  applied  to  sacrifices  and 
offerings,  minchah  and  qorhan.  Minchah  is  used  in  P 
only  of  grain-offerings,  but  in  J  it  is  applied  to  Abel's 
sacrifice  of  the  firstling  of  his  flock  as  well  as  to  Cain's 
vegetable  offering,^*  and  this  general  meaning  occurs  in 
many  other  passages.^^  The  word  was  used  of  gifts  to 
men  as  well  as  God.^®  Qorban  in  the  later  ritual  liter- 
ature is  the  regular  term  for  sacrifice  and  offering  of 
every  kind.^^  It  is  applied  to  sin-offerings  and  trespass- 
offerings  as  well  as  to  meal-offerings,  peace-offerings,  and 
burnt-offerings.  ^^  It  was  the  general  Old  Testament 
rule  that  no  one  might  appear  before  God  without  a  gift.^^ 

^  The  Christian  Doctrine  of  Salvation,  pp.  7-8. 

"Gen.  4.  3-5. 

"^  I  Sam.  2.  17,  29;  26.  19;  Isa.  i.  13;  Psa.  96.  8;  Zeph.  3.  10. 

''Gen.  32.  14,  E;  43.  11,  J;  Isa.  39.  i. 

"Lev.  I.  2,  3;  2.  I,  5;  Num.  31.  50;  7.  13. 

"^Num.  18.  9;  Lev.  3.  i ;  i.  10. 

'"Exod.  23.  15,  E;  34.  20,  J;  Deut.  16.  16. 

308 


FORGIVENESS  AND  ATONEMENT 

Gifts  made  to  God  were  supposed  to  serve  the  same  pur- 
pose as  gifts  to  men.  They  might  insure  a  continuation 
of  the  divine  favor,  or  they  might  appease  the  divine 
anger  if  it  had  been  aroused.  In  the  latter  case  they  were 
a  means  of  atonement.  It  was  in  this  sense  that  sacrifices 
"atoned"  for  sins.  They  were  in  the  nature  of  a  kopher, 
a  ransom  or  compensation  for  the  offenses  committed.'^** 
It  was,  of  course,  assumed  that  the  offering  of  sacrifices 
would  be  accompanied  by  a  proper  attitude  of  mind.''^ 
But  this  was  not  always  the  case,  and  in  such  instances 
sacrifices  were  nothing  less  than  bribes,  attempts  to  pur- 
chase the  divine  forgiveness  without  meeting  its  ethical 
conditions.  It  was  for  this  reason  that  the  preexilic 
prophets  so  frequently  and  vigorously  denounced  the 
sacrificial  cultus. 

Originally  sacrifices  were  no  doubt  looked  upon  as  ac- 
tual food  for  the  gods.  They  partook  of  it,  enjoyed  the 
sweet  savor.  Traces  of  this  view  linger  in  the  Old  Testa- 
ment phraseology.  We  read  in  the  earlier  literature  of 
Yahweh's  smelling  the  offering  or  its  sweet  savor, '^ 
and  in  the  later  legal  literature  "sweet  savor"  is  a  term 
frequently  applied  to^the  sacrifices. '^^  "Bread  of  God" 
is  also  a  common  expression.^^  The  material  implications 
of  these  terms  were  no  doubt  transcended  at  an  early  date 
in  Israel, ^^  but  the  idea  that  sacrifices  were  gifts  to  God 
still  persisted.'''^  As  material  substances  sacrifices  in  P 
did  not,  of  course,  have  any  value  for  Yahweh,  but  as 


™Exod.  21.  30;  I  Sam.  3.  14. 

"2  Sam.  24.  17,  25. 

"Gen.  8.  21,  J;  i  Sam.  26.  19. 

'^Exod.  29.  18,  41 ;  Lev.  i.  9,  13,  17;  Num.  15.  7,  14;  Ezek.  20.  28. 

"Lev.  21.  6,  8,  17,  21;  22.  25;  Ezek.  44.  7. 

"  Compare  Psa.  50.  13. 

'*Lev.  4.  23,  28;  5.  II. 

309 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

gifts  representative  of  the  offender's  attitude  of  mind  and 
heart  they  were  pleasing  to  him  and  hence  significant 
factors  in  securing  the  remission  of  sins. 

In  early  Israel  there  was  no  special  atoning  ritual.  Any 
ordinary  sacrifice  might  serve  the  purpose  of  making 
atonement.  In  the  later  legal  literature,  however,  from 
the  time  of  Ezekiel  on,  there  appear  two  special  propitia- 
tory sacrifices,  the  sin-offering  (chattath)  and  trespass- 
offering  (asham).  Atoning  value  was  not,  however, 
confined  to  these  two  sacrifices.  The  burnt-offering, 
peace-offering,  and  other  oblations  might  serve  the  same 
end.'^^  Indeed,  "the  great  expiation  for  the  whole  people 
was  the  scapegoat;  not  any  form  of  sacrifice."  '^^  In  con- 
nection with  the  sin-offering  and  trespass-offering  it 
should  be  noted  that  they  were  both  quite  limited  in  their 
range,  the  latter  even  more  so  than  the  former.  They 
served  as  a  means  of  atonement  simply  for  "unwitting 
sins."  Sins  "with  a  high  hand"  were  unpardonable. 
"The  soul  that  doeth  aught  with  a  high  hand,  whether  he 
be  home-born  or  a  sojourner,  the  same  blasphemeth  Je- 
hovah ;  and  that  soul  shall  be  cut  off  from  among  his  peo- 
ple. Because  he  hath  despised  the  word  of  Jehovah,  and 
hath  broken  his  commandment,  that  soul  shall  utterly  be 
cut  off;  his  iniquity  shall  be  upon  him."  ^'^  "Unwitting 
sins"  seem,  however,  to  have  been  interpreted  broadly. 
Among  the  sins  for  which  atonement  might  be  made  were 
such  offenses  as  perjury,  robbery,  oppression,  betrayal  of 
trust,  immoral  relations  with  another  man's  bondmaid, 
and  murmurings  against  the  representatives  of   Yah- 

"  Lev.  I.  4;  16.  24;  Ezek.  45.  15,  17. 

"G.  F.  Moore  in  Encyclopedia  Biblica,  vol.  iv,  col.  4219. 

"  Num.  15.  30-31. 

310 


FORGIVENESS  AND  ATONEMENT 

weh,^^  There  are  also  one  or  two  passages  which  seem 
to  provide  for  the  remission  of  all  sins.®^  These  appar- 
ently conflicting  regulations  may  perhaps  have  come  from 
different  hands  and  different  times.  The  prevailing  view 
in  the  Old  Testament  is  that  only  sins  of  inadvertence 
may  be  forgiven.  The  idea  that  certain  sins  are  un- 
pardonable no  doubt  came  from  an  earlier  period,^^  but 
the  first  explicit  statement  of  it  is  found  in  P.  The  dis- 
tinction between  "unwitting"  sins  and  sins  "with  a  high 
hand"  looks  like  an  attempt  to  combine  the  moral  serious- 
ness of  the  prophets  with  the  popular  hankering  after 
sacrifices.  If  sacrificial  atonement  availed  only  for  un- 
witting sins,  a  place  was  manifestly  left  for  the  stern 
attitude  of  the  prophets  toward  distinctly  moral  offenses. 
What  the  prophets  condemned  was  sins  "with  a  high 
hand,"  and  toward  them  the  later  priests  took  an  equally 
uncompromising  attitude.  Sacrifices  had  a  certain  value, 
but  theoretically  they  offered  no  ground  for  the  remission 
of  sins  committed  in  defiance  of  the  divine  will. 

In  P  not  only  did  "unwitting"  sins  call  for  atonement, 
but  also  certain  natural  processes  or  conditions  of  both 
things  and  persons  that  were  regarded  as  unclean.  The 
altar,  for  instance,  needed  to  be  purged  by  atoning  sacri- 
fices.^^ So  also  did  a  woman  after  childbirth,**  a  leper 
healed  of  his  disease,^^  and  a  person  defiled  by  contact 
with  the  dead.*^  In  these  instances  the  sin-offerings  and 
trespass-offerings    were    manifestly    simply    purifying 

*°Lev.  5.  I ;  6.  1-7;  19.  2of. ;  Num.  16.  4ifF. 

"Num.  5.  6ff.;  Lev.  16.  2if. 

^i  Sam.  3.  14;  Isa.  22.  14. 

'*  Exod.  29.  36f . ;  Ezek.  43.  19-27. 

"  Lev.  \2.  6-8. 

"  Lev.  14. 

^'Num.  6.  9-12. 

3n 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

agencies.  They  had  nothing  to  do  with  the  remission  of 
sin.  Their  purpose  was  merely  to  render  unclean  things 
and  persons  clean. 

But  were  the  atoning  sacrifices  anything  more  than 
cleansing  agencies  or  propitiatory  gifts  to  God?  The 
traditional  view  is  that  they  were  also  and  chiefly  cases 
of  penal  substitution.  The  guilt  of  the  sinner  was  trans- 
ferred to  the  sacrificial  animal,  and  the  d^ath  of  the  ani- 
mal was  accepted  as  a  substitute  for  that  of  the  sinner.^^ 
In  support  of  this  view  special  stress  is  laid  on  the  ritual 
of  the  Day  of  the  Atonement.  Here  the  sins  of  Israel 
are  represented  as  placed  on  the  head  of  the  scapegoat 
who  carries  them  away  into  the  wilderness.^*  But  the 
scapegoat  was  not  sacrificed,  nor  was  its  blood  sprinkled 
on  the  altar.  All  that  we  have  here  is  an  analogous  rite, 
from  which  it  might  be  inferred  that  the  guilt  of  the 
people  was  thought  of  as  transferred  to  the  sacrificial 
animal  (note  verses  26  and  28).  That  this  was  actu- 
ally the  case,  it  is  further  argued,  is  evidenced  by  the 
rule  which  required  the  offerer*''  or  the  elders  of  the  con- 
gregation^" or  the  priests^^  to  lay  their  hands  upon  the 
sacrificial  victim.  This  rite,  it  is  thought,  was  a  sym- 
bolic representation  of  the  transfer  of  the  offerer's  guilt 
to  the  victim.  But  this  interpretation  of  the  rite  is  not 
in  harmony  with  the  other  Old  Testament  references  to 
it.    The  general  idea  underlying  the  imposition  of  hands 


"  For  a  defense  of  this  view  in  modified  form,  see  the  article  by 
W.  P.  Paterson  on  "Sacrifice,"  in  Hastings'  Dictionary  of  the  Bible. 
**  Lev.  16.  20-22. 
*"  Lev.  3-  2,  8,  13 ;  4.  4. 
""  Lev.  4.  15. 
»*Lev.  8.  14. 

312 


FORGIVENESS  AND  ATONEMENT 

was  that  of  benediction  or  dedication.®^  If  anything  was 
transferred,  it  was  something  good,  not  bad.  Then,  too, 
one  would  naturally  expect  that  if  the  offender's  sin  had 
been  transferred  to  the  victim,  the  latter's  flesh  would  be 
regarded  as  unclean;  but  instead  we  read  that  it  was 
"most  holy"  and  was  eaten  by  the  priest.®^ 

Again,  it  is  difficult  to  see  how  fine  flour  could  serve  as 
a  sin-offering,®'*  if  vicarious  death  was  the  essential  thing 
in  atonement.  It  is  also  not  easy  on  this  theory  to  under- 
stand why  the  sin-offerings  should  be  limited  in  their 
efficacy  to  sins  of  inadvertence.  If  we  have  the  substitu- 
tion of  one  life  for  another,  we  would  naturally  expect 
that  capital  offenses  as  well  as  others  might  be  expiated. 
Further,  it  may  be  added  that  the  emphasis  in  the  ritual 
was  not  on  the  death  of  the  victim,  but  on  the  sprinkling 
of  the  blood  on  the  altar.  "The  life,"  we  read,  "of  the 
flesh  is  in  the  blood;  and  I  have  given  it  to  you  upon 
the  altar  to  make  atonement  for  your  souls :  for  it  is  the 
blood  that  maketh  atonement  by  reason  of  the  life."®^ 
This  is  the  nearest  approach  to  a  rationale  of  atonement 
in  the  Old  Testament.  It  is  the  blood  that  is  the  effi- 
cacious element  in  sacrifice,  and  it  is  efficacious  because 
it  is  the  seat  of  life.  But  why  the  life-containing  blood 
should  atone  is  not  explained.  Its  efficacy  may  have  been 
regarded  as  due  simply  to  arbitrary  divine  appointment, 
as  Riehm  contended.  More  probably,  however,  other 
and  deeper  ideas  underlay  the  belief.  A  certain  mystical 
sanctity  was  in  ancient  times  attributed  to  the  blood,  and 
this  in  the  thought  of  the  day  gave  to  it  a  purifying  influ- 


**Gen.  48.  14;  Num.  8.  10;  27.  18,  23;  Deut.  34.  9. 
'*  Lev.  6.  24f . ;  7.  6. 
"Lev.  5.  11-13. 
"Lev.  17.  II. 

313 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

ence  and  made  it  a  fitting  symbol  of  the  sinner's  sorrow 
and  desire  for  pardon.  In  any  case,  there  is  no  suggestion 
that  the  hfe  of  the  victim  was  looked  upon  as  a  substitute 
for  that  of  the  sinner. 

At  the  same  time  it  cannot  be  denied  that  the  idea  of 
substitution  had  a  place  in  Hebrew  thought.  The  grand- 
sons of  Saul  were  required  to  pay  with  their  lives  the  pen- 
alty that  ought  to  have  fallen  on  Saul  himself.^^  Isaac 
was  saved  from  being  offered  up  as  a  burnt-offering  by 
the  substitution  of  a  ram.^^  The  first-born  in  early  Israel 
was  redeemed  by  some  sort  of  gift  or  offering,  the  nature 
of  which  is  not  stated  f^  and  in  later  times  the  Levites 
were  regarded  as  a  gift  to  Yahweh  in  substitution  for  the 
first-born  in  Israel.^ ^  These,  however,  were  none  of  them 
cases  of  penal  substitution.  The  death  of  Saul's  grand- 
sons was  in  a  sense  vicarious,  but  not  in  the  sense  that  it 
saved  his  life.  And  in  the  other  instances  there  is  no 
thought  of  the  transference  of  guilt  or  the  suffering  of 
the  innocent  on  behalf  of  the  wicked. 

In  Deut.  21.  1-9  we  do,  however,  have  a  case  where  an 
animal  was  apparently  slain  as  a  substitute  for  an  un- 
known murderer.  The  slaughter  in  this  instance  was  not 
a  sacrifice  according  to  the  Deuteronomic  legislators,  but 
originally  it  was  probably  so  regarded.  And  if  the  idea 
of  substitutionary  sacrifice  applied  in  one  case,  it  may 
very  well  have  applied  in  others ;  so  that  it  would  be  un- 
warranted to  say  that  the  idea  of  penal  substitution  was 
wholly  foreign  to  the  Old  Testament  idea  of  sacrifice. 

But  far  more  important  than  this  instance  is  that  of  the 


**2  Sam.  21.  i-ii. 

°'  Gen.  22.  1-14,  E. 

*'  Exod.  34.  20,  J. 

"Exod.  13.  2;  Num.  3.  i^f,  41 ;  8.  16-18;  18.  15;  all  P. 

3H 


FORGIVENESS  AND  ATONEMENT 

Suffering  Servant. ^^^'^  Here  we  have  true  atonement,  vi- 
carious and  redemptive  suffering  voluntarily  borne,  the 
only  instance  of  the  kind  in  the  Old  Testament.  It  was 
this  conception  far  more  than  the  temple  sacrifices  that 
influenced  the  thought  of  Jesus  and  gave  vital  content  to 
the  early  Christian  teaching  relative  to  his  death.  The 
sin  whose  forgiveness  was  effected  by  sacrificial  atone- 
ment was  not  sin  in  the  Christian  sense  of  the  term.  It 
was  largely  submoral  or  nonmoral.  The  sin,  however, 
for  which  atonement  was  made  by  the  Suffering  Servant 
and  Jesus,  was  something  inward,  a  state  of  the  soul.  It 
was  a  spiritual  condition,  which  could  be  forgiven  only 
by  being  removed.  The  atonement  made  for  it  was  conse- 
quently necessarily  a  redemptive  as  well  as  a  vicarious  act, 
an  act  making  the  unrighteous  righteous. 

^~Isa.  53. 


315 


CHAPTER  XIV 

NATIONALISM  AND  INDIVIDUALISM 

"There  are,"  says  Professor  Flint,  "two  principles  in 
the  world — the  principle  of  authority  and  the  principle  of 
liberty,  the  principle  of  society  and  the  principle  of  indi- 
vidualism." ^  These  two  principles  have  received  vary- 
ing emphasis  at  different  times  and  among  different  peo- 
pks.  A  century  and  a  half  ago  the  dominant  note  of 
European  civilization  was  individualism,  and  in  harmony 
therewith  went  the  theory  that  organized  human  life  was 
the  outcome  of  a  social  contract  freely  entered  into  by 
originally  independent  individuals.  The  first  state  of 
man,  the  so-called  state  of  nature,  was  one  of  absolute 
individual  freedom.  Society  was  a  later  artificial  pro- 
duct; it  was  second  and  not  first.  But  during  the  past 
half  century  this  judgment  has  been  to  a  large  extent  re- 
versed. To-day  the  social  note  is  dominant.  Society  is 
first,  not  second.  The  individual  is  the  product  of  society. 
"Society,"  it  is  said,  "is  the  concrete  reality,  of  which  the 
individual  is  a  mere  abstraction."  And  with  this  general 
view  the  theory  of  origins  has  in  large  measure  been  made 
to  conform.  It  is  now  commonly  agreed  that  the  state 
of  nature  as  conceived  by  the  eighteenth-century  thinkers 
is  a  fiction.  Human  life  was  always  a  community  life. 
And  the  farther  we  go  back,  the  more  marked  does  the 
solidarity  of  the  family,  clan,  and  other  social  groups 
become.  The  individual  tends  to  lose  himself  in  larger 
wholes.  Society,  not  the  individual,  becomes  the  object 
of  primary  concern. 

^Philosophy  of  History,  p.  34. 

316 


NATIONALISM  AND  INDIVIDUALISM 

That  this  new  conception  of  primitive  human  life 
should  be  applied  to  the  interpretation  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment was  inevitable.  The  small  place  accorded  the  indi- 
vidual in  the  Hebrew  Scriptures  had  always  been  a  source 
of  embarrassment  to  apologists.  Efforts  had  been  made 
by  typologists  and  allegorists  to  obscure  or  explain  away 
the  fact,  but  without  success.  It  was,  then,  only  natural 
that  modern  scholars  should  see  in  the  subordinate  place 
assigned  the  individual  in  the  Old  Testament  simply  an 
illustration  of  the  common  ancient  conception  of  social 
solidarity.  And  since  it  is  now  a  generally  recognized 
law  of  human  history  that  with  the  advancement  of  civil- 
ization the  individual  emerges  into  greater  prominence,  it 
was  inevitable  that  the  attempt  should  be  made  to  trace 
in  the  Old  Testament  the  gradual  development  of  individ- 
ualism. Vatke,^  in  1835,  first  pointed  out  the  significance 
of  Jeremiah  and  Ezekiel  for  this  development.  Duhm,^ 
in  1875,  worked  out  the  problem  in  its  relation  to  the 
teaching  of  the  prophets  generally.  And  W.  Robertson 
Smith,^  in  1889,  powerfully  reenforced  the  conclusions  of 
Duhm  and  other  Old  Testament  critics  by  his  apparently 
well-established  theory  of  the  essentially  communal  char- 
acter of  all  primitive  religion,  especially  the  Semitic. 

The  resulting  theory  concerning  nationalism  and  indi- 
vidualism in  the  Old  Testament  may  be  briefly  outlined 
in  two  or  three  paragraphs.  Down  to  the  time  of  Jere- 
miah, Ezekiel,  and  the  exile  the  nation  as  distinguished 
alike  from  other  peoples  and  from  individual  Israelites 
was  the  subject  or  unit  of  religion.  But  the  relation  of 
the  nation  to  Yahweh  was  differently  conceived  by  the  lit- 

"^  Die  Religion  des  Alten  Tcstamentes,  pp.  Siyf.,  637f. 
'Die  Theologie  der  Propheten,  see  pp.  95,  2i6f. 
*  The  Religion  of  the  Semites. 

317 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

erary  prophets,  on  the  one  hand,  and  their  preliterary  pre- 
decessors and  the  people  in  general,  on  the  other.  The 
preliterary  prophets  and  their  contemporaries  looked  upon 
Yahweh  as  bound  to  Israel  by  a  natural  or  physical  bond, 
a  bond  that  could  not  be  broken.  The  literary  prophets, 
on  the  other  hand,  regarded  the  union  between  Yahweh 
and  his  people  as  ethically  conditioned,  and,  therefore,  as 
capable  of  being  dissolved. 

The  individual  during  the  preexilic  period  stood  in  no 
direct  relation  to  Yahweh,  except  in  so  far  as  he  was  a 
representative  of  the  nation.  In  the  individual  as  such 
Yahweh  had  no  interest.  "Over  him,"  as  Wellhausen 
says,  "the  wheel  of  destiny  remorselessly  rolled ;  his  part 
was  resignation  and  not  hope."  ^  In  Isaiah's  doctrine  of 
the  remnant  we  have,  it  is  true,  the  beginning  of  a  new 
religious  unit.  But  not  until  we  come  to  Jeremiah  do  we 
find  the  clear  idea  of  a  direct  personal  relationship  to  God. 
Here  the  prophet's  personality  takes  the  place  of  the  na- 
tion. The  nation  has  been  virtually  cast  off,  and  the 
prophet  alone  now  stands  in  a  direct  relation  to  Yahweh. 
"The  true  Israel  was  narrowed  to  himself."  ^  This  spe- 
cial relation  of  Yahweh  to  a  single  individual  was  then 
universalized  by  Ezekiel  after  the  fall  of  the  nation,  and 
applied  to  individuals  generally.  "All  souls,"  Yahweh 
now  says,  "are  mine."  "^ 

Thus  originated  religious  individualism.  In  the  heart 
of  Jeremiah  was  first  opened  the  fountain  of  true  personal 
piety,  and  from  it  flowed  the  stream  of  religious  lyric 
that  made  its  way  down  through  the  postexilic  period 


^History  of  Israel,  p.  469. 

'  Wellhausen,  History   of  Israel,  p.   4.     See   also    Smend,  Alt- 
testamentliche  Religionsgeschichte,  pp.  263f. 
'  Ezek.  18.  4. 

318 


NATIONALISM  AND  INDIVIDUALISM 

and  issued  in  the  book  of  Psalms,  In  Ezekiel  we  have 
expressed  for  the  first  time  the  strict  doctrine  of  indi- 
vidual responsibility.  This  formed  the  basis  of  much 
of  the  later  Wisdom  Literature,  and  gave  rise  to  the 
problem  of  suffering  which  received  its  classic  expres- 
sion in  the  book  of  Job.  Jeremiah  and  Ezekiel  thus 
marked  the  dividing  line  between  nationalism  and  indi- 
vidualism. In  them  the  old  order  came  to  an  end  and  the 
new  order  began.  Before  the  exile  Israel  was  a  nation, 
after  the  exile  a  church,  a  congregation  of  devout  indi- 
viduals. Traces  of  the  earlier  nationalism,  to  be  sure, 
lingered  after  the  exile,  but  the  individual  was  by  this 
time  firmly  established  as  the  true  subject  or  unit  of  reli- 
gion. 

Such  in  brief  is  the  view  held  by  a  large  and  influential 
group  of  scholars.  Wellhausen,  Stade,  Duhm,  Marti, 
Smend  in  his  earlier  utterances  on  the  subject,  W.  Robert- 
son Smith,  G.  Buchanan  Gray,  R.  H.  Charles,  and  many 
others  have  adopted  it.  Indeed,  it  has  become  so  common 
and  is  so  unquestioningly  accepted  by  many  that  it  might 
almost  be  called  a  dogma  of  modern  criticism.  And  that 
it  contains  a  large  element  of  truth  is  not  to  be  denied. 
But  in  some  important  regards  the  theory  is  certainly 
wrong,  and  at  other  points  it  is  lacking  in  clearness  and 
definiteness. 

The  topic  is,  furthermore,  one  of  such  importance  that 
a  careful  critical  investigation  of  it  is  necessary,  if  one  is 
to  have  a  correct  conception  of  the  religious  life  of  the 
Israelites  both  before  and  after  the  exile. 

The  Nation  as  the  Unit  of  Religion 

It  is  not  always  clear  what  scholars  mean  by  the  nation 
when  they  speak  of  it  as  the  unit  or  subject  of  religion. 

319 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

Is  it  to  be  understood  in  a  political  or  a  racial  sense  ?  The 
former  seems  to  be  the  prevailing  view,  W.  Robertson 
Smith,  for  instance,  speaks  of  the  "whole  nation  in  its 
national  organization  ...  as  the  religious  unit."  ^ 
And  the  stress  placed  on  the  exile  as  the  dividing  line  be- 
tween nationalism  and  individualism  naturally  suggests 
that  it  is  the  nation  in  a  political  sense  that  is  primarily 
thought  of.  W.  H.  Bennett,  for  instance,  says  that  "the 
suspension  of  national  life  left  only  individuals  to  be 
dealt  with."  ^  Furthermore,  it  might  be  argued  that  only 
a  nation  politically  organized  would  be  in  a  position  to 
exercise  in  an  effective  way  a  restraining  influence  on  the 
individual.  Mere  racial  or  ecclesiastical  unity  might  per- 
haps furnish  a  sufficient  basis  for  nationalism  as  opposed 
to  universalism,  but  for  nationalism  as  opposed  to  individ- 
ualism political  unity  would  be  necessary.  Only  a  power- 
ful social  group  such  as  the  independent  state  would  be 
able  to  effect  such  a  complete  subordination  of  the  indi- 
vidual as  is  implied  in  religious  nationalism. 

But  if  it  is  the  nation  as  a  political  entity  that  was  the 
subject  of  Old  Testament  religion,  both  the  establishment 
and  the  fall  of  the  monarchy  must  have  profoundly  af- 
fected the  religious  consciousness  of  the  Israelites.  And 
of  this  we  have  no  evidence,  at  least  so  far  as  the  partic- 
ular point  under  consideration  is  concerned.  Clan  con- 
sciousness may  have  been  stronger  in  the  period  of  the 
Judges,^*^  and  individual  self-consciousness  in  the  post- 
exilic  period,  but  in  both  periods  Yahweh  was  thought  of 
as  standing  in  a  unique  relation  to  the  entire  people.  No 
important  difference  on  this  point  is  observable  between 

'  The  Prophets  of  Israel,  p.  20. 
*  The  Post-Exilic  Prophets,  p.  243. 
***  See  Wallis,  Sociological  Study  of  the  Bible,  p.  47. 

320 


NATIONALISM  AND  INDIVIDUALISM 

the  literature  of  these  two  periods,  on  the  one  hand,  and 
that  of  the  monarchy  on  the  other.  Throughout  the 
whole  of  Israel's  history  it  was  the  entire  nation  that  was 
thought  of  as  standing  in  covenant  relation  with  God.  It 
must,  then,  have  been  the  racial  unity  of  the  people  rather 
than  their  political  organization  that  was  uppermost  in 
the  minds  of  the  Old  Testament  writers  when  they  spoke 
of  the  bond  of  union  between  Yahweh  and  Israel.  No 
doubt  the  term  "Israel"  carried  a  different  connotation  at 
different  times  and  with  dift'erent  authors.  With  some 
the  political  factor  was  more  prominent  than  with  others, 
but  taking  the  Old  Testament  as  a  whole  the  basal  ele- 
ment in  the  term  was  certainly  that  of  race  or  kinship.^^ 
And  if  so,  the  distinction  between  preexilic  and  postexilic 
Israel  need  not  have  been  so  great  as  is  commonly  sup- 
posed. We  may  speak  of  the  one  as  a  nation  and  the 
other  as  a  church,  we  may  call  the  one  ''secular"  and  the 
other  "ecclesiastical,"  but  the  consciousness  of  religious 
solidarity  was  essentially  the  same  in  both.  As  proof  of 
this  we  need  only  compare  the  prophecies,  legal  codes, 
and  histories  of  the  exilic  and  postexilic  period  with  those 
of  the  preexilic  age.  In  both  groups  of  writings  it  will  be 
found  that  we  have  practically  the  same  conception  of 
Israel  and  its  relation  to  Yahweh.  ^^ 

Another  point  that  calls  for  consideration  in  this  con- 
nection is  the  relation  of  the  solidarity  of  the  nation  to 

"  "Religion  and  race,"  says  Dr.  K.  Kohler  in  his  Jewish  Theology 
(pp.  6-7),  "form  an  inseparable  whole  in  Judaism.  .  .  .  The  racial 
consciousness  formed,  and  still  forms,  the  basis  of  the  religious 
community." 

'"  For  a  convincing  and  almost  exhaustive  array  of  evidence  on 
this  point  see  "Das  Subjekt  dcr  altisraelitischen  Religion,"  by  E. 
Sellin,  in  Neue  Kirchliche  Zeitschrift  for  1893,  pp.  447-465. 

321 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

that  of  the  family,  clan,  and  other  smaller  groups.  Some 
scholars  fail  to  distinguish  clearly  between  these  different 
kinds  of  solidarity.  R.  H.  Charles,  for  instance,  says  that 
in  early  Israel  "the  individual  was  not  the  religious  unit, 
but  the  family  or  tribe,"  and  then  a  little  later  declares 
that  "the  nation  was  the  religious  unit."  ^^  But  mani- 
festly the  nation  was  not  identical  with  the  family  or  tribe. 
National  solidarity  is  clearly  quite  distinct  from  a  merely 
tribal  or  family  solidarity.  Yet,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  the 
family  as  well  as  the  nation  is  often  treated  as  a  moral 
unit  in  the  Old  Testament.  Innocent  relatives  were  pun- 
ished along  with  the  guilty  persons  and  even  instead  of 
them.  This  was  true  of  the  divine  procedure  as  well  as  of 
the  human.  The  most  conspicuous  instances  are  perhaps 
those  connected  with  the  destruction  of  Korah,  Dathan, 
and  Abiram,^^  the  punishment  of  Achan,^^  the  avenging 
of  Saul's  crime  against  the  Gibeonites,^^  and  the  judicial 
murder  of  Naboth.^'''  But  these  were  by  no  means  excep- 
tions. They  illustrate  the  common  practice.  This  is  evi- 
dent not  only  from  the  many  other  similar  instances  in  the 
Old  Testament,^^  but  also  from  the  generally  accepted 
law  of  blood  revenge.  This  law  not  only  required  the 
Israelite  to  avenge  the  blood  of  a  relative,  but  permitted 
him  to  execute  that  vengeance  on  a  relative  of  the  guilty 
person  as  well  as  on  the  guilty  one  himself.    And  in  the 


^^  Eschatology,  Hebrczv,  Jcu'ish  and  Christian,  pp.  58,  Go. 

"  Num.  16.  27ff.  JEP. 

"Josh.  7.  16-26. 

"2  Sam.  21.  1-9. 

"  I  Kings  21.  13  and  2  Kings  g.  26. 

'""See  2  Sam.  3.  29;  i  Kings  2.  33;  14.  10;  16.  3;  21.  21  f.;  i  Sam. 
2.  31  ;  Deut.  22.  8;  Lev.  20.  5 ;  2  Sam.  14.  9;  Neh.  i.  6;  Amos  7.  17; 
Jer.  18.  21  ;  20.  6;  Gen.  20.  7,  17;  i  Sam.  22.  1-4;  25.  22;  2  Sam.  12. 
10,  13;  I  Kings  II.  iiff. ;  21.  29f. ;  Isa.  14.  21. 

322 


NATIONALISM  AND  INDIVIDUALISM 

Decalogue^^  it  is  declared  that  Yahweh  visits  the  iniquity 
of  the  fathers  upon  the  children  even  to  the  third  and 
fourth  generation.  Moreover  this  custom  of  treating 
the  family  as  a  moral  unit  was  not  confined  to  the  earlier 
periods  of  Israel's  history.  The  very  latest  books  of  the 
Old  Testament  contain  instances  of  it.^^  It  should  also 
be  added  that  the  solidarity  of  the  family  brought  not 
only  sujfcring  upon  one's  relatives,  but  also  blessing. 
They  shared  in  the  consequences  of  one's  good  deeds  as 
well  as  one's  evil  deeds.  Yahweh  keeps  covenant  and  lov- 
ing-kindness with  them  that  love  him  and  keep  his  com- 
mandments to  a  thousand  generations.^^  And  so  it  is 
often  recorded  that  because  of  the  righteousness  of  some 
good  man,  such  as  Noah,^-  Caleb,^^  Obed-Edom,^*  or 
David,^^  his  family  or  a  descendant  was  granted  some 
special  favor. 

Such  facts  as  these  naturally  raise  the  question  as  to 
the  relation  of  the  solidarity  of  the  family  to  that  of  the 
nation.  One  might  regard  the  latter  as  an  extension  of  the 
former.  And  this  was  a  common  idea  in  antiquity.  But 
we  now  know  that  nations  do  not  arise  from  the  growth 
of  a  single  family.  They  are  the  result  of  the  union  of 
different  tribes  or  peoples.  And  in  the  case  of  Israel  we 
have  a  well-established  tradition  that  the  different  Hebrew 
tribes  were  welded  into  national  unity  by  the  work  of 
Moses.  This  unity  did  not  become  political  till  the  time 
of  Saul  and  David.     But  it  was  nevertheless  from  the 

"  Exod.  20.  5 


uxoa.  20.  5. 
'"Dan.  6.  24;  Esth.  9.  13!. 
"  Deut.  7.  9 ;  Exod.  20.  6. 
"  Gen.  7.  I. 
''  Deut.  I.  z^- 
"2  Sam.  6.    I  if. 
^°  I  Kings  II.  II ;  2  Chron.  21.  7. 

323 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

outset  a  true  national  unity,  a  unity  founded  on  race 
and  religion.  Yahweh  was  recognized  as  the  national 
God.  He  stood  in  a  direct  relation  to  the  people  as  a 
whole.  As  over  against  him  they  formed  a  unity.  His 
covenant  was  a  covenant  with  them  in  their  corporate 
capacity.  In  a  word,  he  was  God  of  the  nation  rather 
than  of  the  individual  tribes  or  families. 

The  suggestion  has  consequently  been  made  that  the 
solidarity  of  the  family  had  originally  no  connection  with 
Yahwism.  It  was  simply  a  survival  from  pre-Yahwistic 
times.  It  had  its  source  in  the  family  cult,  especially  the 
cult  of  the  dead.^*^  The  numen  or  numina  originally  wor- 
shiped in  the  family  were  gradually  displaced  by  the  na- 
tional religion,  but,  after  they  had  vanished,  the  family 
still  persisted  as  a  religious  unit.^^  In  this  view  there  is 
probably  some  truth.  But  it  hardly  seems  necessary  to  as- 
sume that  the  relation  of  Yahweh  to  the  nation  was  so 
exclusive  as  to  be  naturally  and  logically  inconsistent  with 
the  existence  of  other  minor  moral  and  religious  units. 
Granting  the  principle  of  solidarity,  it  would  seem  only 
natural  that  it  should  be  applied  to  other  social  groups  as 
well  as  the  nation.  Take,  for  instance,  the  village  or  city. 
In  several  instances  in  the  Old  Testament  the  inhabitants 
of  a  city  are  treated  as  a  moral  unit.  There  is  the  case  of 
Sodom  and  Gomorrah,^^  and  that  of  the  city  of  Nob.^® 
Then  in  Deut,  13.  12-16  we  have  a  regulation  providing 
for  the  destruction  of  all  the  inhabitants  of  any  city  in 
which  idolatry  has  been  practiced,  regardless  of  the  fact 


''  See  Stade,  Geschichte  dcs  Volkcs  Israel,  vol.  i,  p.  507,  and  Lohr, 
Socialismus  und  Individualismus  im  altcn  Testament,  pp.  9-1 1. 
"  I  Sam.  20.  6. 
=' Gen.  18-19,  J. 
'"  I  Sam.  22.  19. 

324 


NATIONALISM  AND  INDIVIDUALISM 

that  some  in  all  probability  would  be  innocent.  In  such 
cases  no  real  light  is  thrown  on  the  fact  by  ascribing  it  to 
a  non-Yahwistic  or  pre-Yahwistic  source.  What  we  have 
is  merely  an  application  of  the  principle  of  solidarity  ana- 
logous to  that  in  the  case  of  the  nation.  Between  the 
solidaric  city  or  family,  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  solidaric 
nation,  on  the  other,  there  was  no  inconsistency.  Neither 
was  in  an  exclusive  sense  the  subject  or  unit  of  religion. 

Another  point  that  needs  to  be  noted  is  the  exact  sense 
in  which  the  Hebrews  thought  of  the  nation  as  a  religious 
unit.  The  general  notion  of  solidarity  as  applied  to  the 
nation  is  clear  enough.  Various  aspects  of  it  appear  in 
the  Old  Testament.  The  people  are  represented  as  so 
bound  up  with  their  own  past  that  the  deeds  of  the  fathers 
had  a  moral  significance  for  them.  They  suffered  because 
of  the  sins  of  the  fathers,^^  and  because  of  the  righteous- 
ness of  the  patriarchs  were  blessed.^^  The  nation  is  also 
represented  as  sustaining  such  an  organic  relation  to 
every  member  and  part  of  it  that  the  acts  of  the  individ- 
ual or  any  group  of  individuals  had  a  bearing  on  the  for- 
tunes and  the  moral  status  of  the  people  as  a  whole.  It 
is  naturally  the  king  who  is  most  frequently  spoken  of  as 
standing  in  this  solidaric  relation  to  the  nation.^-  The 
people  were  punished  because  of  the  sins  of  Manasseh  and 
Ahaz,^^  and,  on  the  other  hand,  are  said  to  have  been  de- 
livered from  the  Assyrian  foe  for  David's  sake.^*  But 
it  was  not  only  the  king  who  stood  in  this  relation  of 

""2  Chron.  34.  21 ;  29.  6-8;  Dan.  9.  16;  compare  Lev.  26.  39;  Gen. 
49.  3ff. 

"  Gen.  26.  5,  24,  J ;  Lev.  26.  42,  45 ;  compare  Exod.  32.  13. 
'^2  Sam.  3.  28;  Gen.  20.  9,  E. 

^2  Kings  21.  10-13;  23.  26;  Jer.  15.  4;  2  Chron.  28.  19. 
"2  Kings  19.  34;  20.  6. 

32s 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

moral  solidarity  with  the  people.  Individuals  generally 
occupied  the  same  relation.  The  sin  of  Achan  brought 
defeat  upon  the  army  of  Israel,^^  and  as  the  reverse  of 
this  Isaiah  represents  himself  as  involved  in  the  guilt 
of  the  nation,^^  Individuals  suffered  because  of  the  sins 
of  the  people  as  a  whole.  And  so  also  the  sins  of  a  par- 
ticular class  or  group  of  men  brought  guilt  upon  the 
entire  nation. ^'^  This  appears  to  have  been  the  standpoint 
of  the  earlier  prophets;  and  it  may  be,  as  J.  M.  Powis 
Smith  says,  that  this  fact  accounts  to  some  extent  for  the 
intensity  and  passion  of  their  denunciation  of  the 
wicked.  They  believed  that  the  wicked  were  not  only 
bringing  destruction  upon  themselves  but  upon  the  whole 
people,  good  as  well  as  bad.  It  would  seem,  then,  as 
though  the  ancient  Israelites  looked  upon  the  nation  as  a 
self-identical  moral  personality,  embracing  in  its  unity 
not  only  all  existing  members  but  also  past  generations. 

The  question,  however,  arises  as  to  whether  the  idea  of 
national  solidarity  actually  existed  in  such  a  definite  form 
as  this  in  the  minds  of  the  Hebrews,  whether  it  was  not 
with  them  rather  a  vague  feeling,  than  a  clear  concept.  It 
might  even  be  questioned  whether  we  have  not  here  simply 
a  personification  rather  than  a  personalization  of  the 
nation.  But  the  above  facts  and  references  seem  clearly 
to  imply  that  the  solidarity  of  the  nation  was  not  with 
the  Hebrews  a  mere  figure  of  speech.  There  was  a  real 
sense  in  which  they  thought  of  the  nation  as  a  unit.  The 
tendency  of  the  Semitic  mind  to  ascribe  objective  reality 
to  collective  terms  and  general  conceptions,  naturally  led 
to  this  view.    But  that  the  Hebrews  had  reflected  on  the 


^^  Josh.  7.  2-21 ;  compare  Gen.  26.  10. 

""  Isa.  6.  5. 

^'Ezra  10.  10;  Josh.  22.  18. 

326 


NATIONALISM  AND  INDIVIDUALISM 

subject  at  such  length  that  they  had  come  to  think  of  the 
nation  as  a  "corporate  personaHty,"  ^^  is  quite  improb- 
able. Their  ideas  concerning  the  unity  of  the  state  must 
at  the  best  have  been  vague,  and  only  in  a  very  general 
way  can  they  have  thought  of  its  component  parts,  past 
and  present,  as  morally  interrelated.  Statements  were 
made  that  may  seem  to  us  to  imply  a  highly  developed 
conception  of  the  nation  as  a  moral  unit  and  an  organic 
whole,  but  it  is  not  to  be  supposed  that  the  ancient  Hebrew 
necessarily  drew  from  these  statements  the  same  conclu- 
sion that  we  to-day  would. 

This  leads  us  to  ask  how  the  conception  of  the  nation 
as  the  subject  of  religion  related  itself  to  the  practical 
life,  the  actual  consciousness  of  the  individual  Israelite. 
It  meant,  of  course,  that  his  relation  to  Yahweh  was  con- 
ditioned by  the  fact  that  he  was  an  Israelite.  But  how 
did  the  nationalistic  as  opposed  to  the  individualistic 
standpoint  affect  his  life?  Did  it  make  him  more  inter- 
ested than  the  modern  man  in  public  affairs?  Did  it  give 
him  a  higher  estimate  of  the  value  of  society  or  the  na- 
tion? Did  it  cause  him  to  be  more  patriotic  and  less  self- 
regarding?  Or  was  his  religious  nationalism  more  or  less 
unconscious  ?  Was  it  to  a  considerable  extent  a  mechan- 
ical fact  rather  than  a  deliberate  devotion  to  the  common 
good? 

In  answering  this  question  it  will  be  well  to  begin  with 
a  consideration  of  the  current  view  of  primitive  life  in 
general.  We  have  already  seen  that  according  to  this  view 
the  earliest  social  groups  were  characterized  by  a  marked 
solidarity.     The  individual  was  almost  wholly  subordi- 

^  See  H.  Wheeler  Robinson's  Christian  Doctrine  of  Man,  pp.  8, 
27S. 

327 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

nated  to  the  family  or  tribe.  And  from  this  the  conclusion 
has  been  drawn  that  men's  original  impulses  were  distinc- 
tively and  predominantly  social.  They  were  directed 
toward  the  common  good,  the  welfare  of  the  group.  The 
individual  cared  little  for  himself.  His  life  was  very 
largely  absorbed  in  that  of  the  clan.  But  this  conclusion 
rests  upon  a  manifest  error.  It  assumes  that  primitive 
man  interpreted  the  facts  of  his  own  life  in  the  same  way 
that  we  to-day  would  with  our  developed  self-conscious- 
ness. This  is  in  itself  inherently  improbable,  and  is  really 
a  case  of  what  has  been  called  the  psychological  or  socio- 
logical fallacy.  Professor  Warner  Fite  has  stated  the 
case  so  clearly  that  I  quote  somewhat  at  length  from 
him:  "The  primitive  clan  exhibits,  let  us  say,  a  distinct 
solidarity,  a  clear  submission  of  the  individual  will  to  the 
authority  of  the  group.  For  us  that  would  mean  a  con- 
scious recognition  of  the  paramount  claims  of  the  com- 
mon good.  But  it  need  not  mean  this  for  primitive  man, 
any  more  than  the  movements  of  the  heavenly  bodies 
mean  for  him  that  the  earth  revolves  upon  its  axis.  .  .  , 
The  primitive  life  is  a  relatively  unconscious  life.  The 
primitive  condition  of  mind  is  not  so  much  a  clear  percep- 
tion of  things  as  a  vaguely  mystical  feeling.  The  prim- 
itive society  is  thus  less  a  conscious  relationship  than  a 
mechanical  fact.  No  high  sense  of  the  value  of  social 
unity  binds  men  together.  They  just  stick  together;  and, 
relatively  speaking,  in  much  the  same  way  as  the  cattle  or 
the  parts  of  a  machine,  because  of  the  mechanical  struc- 
ture of  the  individuals  and  their  space  and  time  relations. 
The  primitive  individual  has  no  very  distinct  conscious- 
ness of  himself,  and  just  as  indistinct  a  consciousness  of 
the  presence  and  characteristics  of  his  neighbor.  He 
obeys  the  group-authority — not,  however,  from  a  recogni- 

328 


NATIONALISM  AND  INDIVIDUALISM 

tion  of  value,  but  as  the  result  of  inherited  instinct  and 
habit.  .  .  .  For  only  as  the  individual  has  a  meaning 
of  his  own  can  he  attribute  any  meaning  to  the  social 
order."  ^^ 

The  bearing  of  this  on  Israelitic  nationalism  is  evident. 
Much  of  what  is  called  religious  nationalism  in  the  history 
of  the  Hebrews  was  not  self-conscious.  It  was  simply  a 
blind  acquiescence  in  established  custom  or  an  equally 
blind  patriotism.  The  people  no  doubt  believed  that  the 
violation  of  the  divine  will  as  expressed  in  religious  rite 
and  social  usage  might  bring  evil  upon  the  community, 
and  this  naturally  served  as  an  inducement  to  obedience. 
But  in  this  no  clear  consciousness  of  the  superior  claims 
of  the  community  or  nation  as  such  was  necessarily  in- 
volved. And  so  also  with  the  patriotism  of  the  Hebrews. 
This  was  stimulated  by  their  frequent  wars,  and  expressed 
itself  in  the  ardent  expeictation  of  a  glorious  future  for 
the  nation.  But  in  it  all  there  was  probably  very  little  in 
the  way  of  clear  perception  of  the  meaning  and  value  of 
the  state.  As  a  means  of  defense  against  a  foreign  foe 
its  function  was  no  doubt  generally  understood  and  appre- 
ciated, but  beyond  this  there  was  no  clear  understanding 
of  its  place  in  human  life  and  very  little  of  what  could 
be  called  rational  and  moral  devotion  to  it.  Even  to-day, 
as  Professor  Bowne  says,  "society  is  held  together  less 
by  rational  appreciation  and  moral  devotion  than  by 
something  analogous  to  the  herding  instinct  of  cattle. 
...  A  large  part  of  patriotism  and  national  feeling  is 
only  one  phase  of  this  instinct,  complicated  by  our  native 
pugnacity."  '^^  And  this  must  have  been  much  more  the 
case  among  the  ancient  Hebrews,  who  had  no  regular 


^^Individualism,  pp.  166-167. 
*"  Principles  of  Ethics,  pp.  I27f. 

329 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

system  of  education,  and  who  in  spite  of  their  hmited 
territory  had  far  less  adequate  means  than  we  of  gather- 
ing and  disseminating  news. 

It  is,  consequently,  a  mistake  to  attribute  to  the  early 
Israelites  a  paramount  interest  in  national  affairs  and  a 
superior  devotion  to  the  common  good.  Their  national- 
ism was  largely  of  the  instinctive  or  mechanical  type. 
Not  until  we  come  to  literary  prophecy  do  we  have  a 
really  serious  effort  to  bring  Israelitic  nationalism  to  self- 
consciousness.  Here  the  blind  patriotism  of  the  past  and 
a  merely  mechanical  conformity  to  rites  and  customs 
are  set  aside  as  worthless  and  misleading.  The  nation 
has  a  mission  to  perform,  but  it  is  a  moral  mission;  and 
this  mission  can  be  performed  only  by  resolute  devotion 
to  the  will  of  God  and  the  common  good  as  expressed 
especially  in  the  moral  law.  To  bring  this  truth  home  to 
the  minds  and  consciences  of  the  people  was  the  chief  task 
of  the  eighth-century  prophets.  And  the  work  they  be- 
gan was  in  its  essential  nature  carried  on  by  the  Deuter- 
onomists,  and  the  exilic  and  postexilic  prophets  and  law- 
givers. What  we  have,  therefore,  in  the  history  of  Israel 
is  not  a  gradual  decline  of  nationalism,  but  an  increasing 
consciousness  of  it.  The  nation  instead  of  losing  its  reli- 
gious value  augments  it.  The  clearest  and  noblest  expres- 
sions of  the  religious  function  of  the  nation  come  from 
the  postexilic  period,  and  it  is  here  also  that  we  must  look 
for  the  truest  and  the  most  intense  devotion  to  the  com- 
mon good. 

Thus  far  our  discussion  has  brought  us  to  several  con- 
clusions. We  have  seen  that  the  nation  with  which  Yah- 
weh's  covenant  was  made  was  not  construed  by  the  He- 
brews in  such  an  exclusively  or  predominantly  political 
sense  that  the  exile  necessarily  led  to  a  sudden  transition 

330 


NATIONALISM  AND  INDIVIDUALISM 

to  individualism.  We  have  also  seen  that  the  conception 
of  the  nation  as  a  religious  unit  was  not  inconsistent  with 
the  existence  of  other  minor  religious  units,  such  as  the 
family,  clan,  or  city.  It  has,  furthermore,  been  shown 
that  the  solidarity  of  the  nation  was  by  no  means  clearly 
conceived  by  the  early  Israelites;  that,  on  the  contrary, 
it  was  largely  mechanical  in  character,  and  that  the  con- 
sciousness of  national  solidarity  instead  of  gradually  de- 
clining continued  to  grow  in  clearness  of  conception  and 
depth  of  devotion  throughout  most  of  the  Old  Testament 
period. 

The  Individual  as  a  Religious  Unit 

We  now  pass  to  a  consideration  of  the  place  of  the 
individual  in  the  Old  Testament,  and  here  we  begin  with 
preexilic  Israel.  As  previously  stated,  it  is  a  common 
theory  that  "down  to  the  sixth  century  no  individual 
retribution  had  been  looked  for ;  .  .  .  for  Yahweh  was 
concerned  in  the  well-being  of  the  nation  as  a  whole,  and 
not  with  that  of  its  individual  members.  .  .  .  Before 
the  exile  .  .  .  the  individual  as  such  had  no  worth 
and  could  not  approach  God  except  through  priest  or 
prophet. "^^  The  fate  of  the  individual  was  involved  in 
that  of  the  nation  or  the  particular  group  to  which  he 
belonged.  He  had  no  independent  significance  What 
Tennyson  said  of  nature, 

"So  careful  of  the  type  she  seems, 
So  careless  of  the  single  life," 

might  be  applied  to  Yahweh's  relation  to  Israel.  He 
was  deeply  interested  in  the  nation,  but  cared  little  for  the 
individual.     And  at  first  sight,  viewing  the  preexilic  lit- 

■"  R.  N.  Charles,  Religious  Development  Between  the  Old  and  the 
New  Testaments,  pp.  105,  67. 

331 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

erature  in  the  large,  it  will  have  to  be  admitted  that  some- 
thing can  be  said  for  this  view.  The  preexilic  literature, 
made  up  chiefly  of  prophecies,  legal  codes,  and  historical 
narratives,  deals  very  largely  with  the  nation,  its  origin, 
history,  and  destiny.  Individuals,  to  be  sure,  figure 
prominently  in  the  historical  narratives,  but  they  are 
chiefly  such  men  as  the  patriarchs.  Judges,  kings,  and 
prophets,  whose  life  and  work  had  a  national  significance. 
The  individual  as  such  receives  very  little  attention.  On 
the  other  hand,  the  Psalms  and  Wisdom  Literature,  in 
which  the  needs  and  problems  of  the  individual  find  their 
chief  expression,  belong  for  the  most  part,  if  not  exclu- 
sively, to  the  postexilic  period.  Hence  the  inference  is 
natural,  that  nationalism  was  the  characteristic  of  pre- 
exilic Israel,  and  individualism  the  characteristic  of  Israel 
after  the  exile. 

But  a  more  careful  and  detailed  study  of  the  facts  in- 
volved soon  makes  it  evident  that  this  view  is  quite  unten- 
able. The  preliminary  presupposition  in  its  favor,  aris- 
ing from  a  superficial  survey  of  the  history  of  Old  Testa- 
ment literature,  largely  vanishes  when  one  takes  into 
account  two  facts.  The  first  has  already  been  alluded  to. 
It  is  that  the  prophetic,  priestly,  and  historical  literature 
of  the  postexilic  period  is  on  the  whole  virtually  as  na- 
tionalistic as  is  the  corresponding  literature  of  the  pre- 
exilic period.  It  belongs  to  the  very  nature  of  these  types 
of  literature  that  they  should  deal  chiefly  with  the  nation. 
History,  prophecy,  and  law,  as  then  understood,  were 
distinctly  national.  And  the  fact  that  they  were  practi- 
cally as  much  so  in  the  period  after  the  exile  as  in  that 
before,  makes  it  perfectly  clear  that  no  sweeping  conclu- 
sion concerning  the  exclusively  nationalistic  character  of 
preexilic  religion  can  justly  be  drawn  from  the  fact  that 

332 


NATIONALISM  AND  INDIVIDUALISM 

the  literature  of  this  period  was  predominantly  national. 
In  the  next  place,  such  individualistic  literature  as  the 
Psalms  and  Wisdom  Books  must  have  existed  to  some 
extent  before  the  exile.  Most  of  what  has  come  down 
to  us  may  date  from  a  subsequent  period.  But  that  this 
type  of  literature  originated  in  the  exile  or  subsequently 
is  a  wholly  unwarranted  assumption.  The  only  con- 
clusion justified  by  the  facts  is  that  it  was  cultivated  more 
extensively  after  than  before  the  exile. 

But  in  order  to  come  to  a  definite  conclusion  concerning 
the  question  at  issue,  it  will  be  necessary  to  examine  some- 
what carefully  the  teaching  of  those  portions  of  the  Old 
Testament  which  are  commonly  admitted  to  be  preexilic 
or  rather  pre-Jeremianic.  That  there  should  be  here  some 
recognition  of  the  rights  and  worth  of  the  individual  is 
a  priori  probable.  We  have  already  seen  that  other  reli- 
gious units  besides  the  nation  were  recognized  in  ancient 
Israel,  such  as  the  family,  clan,  and  city.  If  these  were 
not  excluded  by  the  existing  nationalism,  there  is  cer- 
tainly no  reason  why  the  individual  should  not  at  the  same 
time  have  been  recognized  as  a  moral  or  religious  unit. 
On  the  contrary,  such  recognition  is  inherently  probable. 
For  there  is  no  necessary  contradiction  between  the  nation 
or  society,  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  individual,  on  the 
other.  The  primitive  subordination  of  the  individual  to 
the  group  was,  as  we  have  seen,  largely  mechanical.  It 
was  akin  to  the  herding  instinct  of  cattle.  There  was  no 
conscious  recognition  of  the  value  of  the  group  any  more 
than  there  was  of  that  of  the  individual.  Man,  to  begin 
with,  was  neither  social  nor  self -regarding.  He  devel- 
oped into  both,  and  both,  in  so  far  as  they  were  facts  of 
consciousness,  tended  to  support  each  other.  The  individ- 
ual found  his  value  in  society,  and  society  found  the 

333 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

ground  of  its  value  in  the  individual.  As  the  individual 
came  to  distinguish  himself  from  the  group  in  which  he 
was  merged,  he  entered  at  the  same  time  into  a  recogni- 
tion of  the  place  and  value  of  the  group.  Thus  indi- 
vidual self -consciousness  and  social  self -consciousness 
kept  pace  one  with  the  other.  Whatever  recognition  there 
was  of  the  high  value  of  the  group,  whether  that  of  the 
family,  tribe,  or  nation,  necessarily  reacted  upon  the  con- 
sciousness of  the  individual,  and  tended  to  create  in  him  a 
new  sense  of  worth.  And  so  the  achievements  of  the  in- 
dividual and  the  recognition  of  his  value  reacted  in  a  sim- 
ilar way  upon  the  consciousness  of  the  group,  in  so  far  as 
the  group  furnished  for  the  individual  a  worthy  field  of 
activity.  One  group  might  yield  in  importance  to  an- 
other, the  tribe  to  the  nation,  and  the  nation  to  society  in 
general,  but,  in  so  far  as  the  group  concerned  formed  an 
adequate  field  for  the  thought  and  labor  of  the  individual, 
there  was  no  reason  why  the  consciousness  of  the  group 
and  that  of  the  individual  should  in  any  sense  be  mutually 
exclusive.  And  so,  as  we  turn  to  the  history  of  Israel,  we 
will  naturally  expect  to  find  the  development  of  national- 
ism and  individualism  going  hand  in  hand. 

The  religion  of  Israel  began  in  a  great  act  of  national 
deliverance,  and  this  fact  gave  to  it  from  the  outset  a  dis- 
tinctly national  cast.  But  Hebrew  nationalism  was  at 
first  only  imperfectly  apprehended,  and  in  any  case  stood 
In  no  conflict  with  the  claims  of  the:  individual.  What 
the  individual  had  to  contend  against  in  that  early  day 
was  the  enslaving  tie  which  bound  him  to  the  clan  or  tribe. 
And  this  tie  was  not  strengthened,  but  weakened  by  the 
new  nationalism.  The  national  idea  tended  to  break  up 
the  old  tribal  distinctions,  customs,  and  religious  rites; 
and,  in  so  far  as  it  did  this,  it  manifestly  contributed  to 

334 


NATIONALISM  AND  INDIVIDUALISM 

the  development  of  individual  independence,  instead  of 
the  reverse.  Some  recognition  of  the  individual  is,  there- 
fore, to  be  expected  even  in  the  earliest  literature  of  the 
Hebrews,  and  certainly  in  the  pre-Jeremianic  literature 
taken  as  a  whole. 

Turning  now  to  this  early  literature  and  inquiring  more 
specifically  into  the  status  of  the  individual  as  reflected  in 
it,  we  first  note  a  number  of  instances  in  which  the  law 
of  solidarity  did  not  hold  in  the  execution  of  punishment. 
There  are  the  cases  of  Noah,^^  Lot,^^  and  Caleb.^^  There 
is  the  direct  statement  that,  when  the  murderers  of  Joash 
were  punished,  their  children  were  not  put  to  death  with 
them;"*^  and  with  this  may  be  connected  the  words  of 
David  at  the  time  when  a  pestilence  was  sweeping  over 
Israel  as  a  punishment  for  the  taking  of  a  census :  **Lo, 
I  have  sinned,  and  I  have  done  perversely ;  but  these  sheep, 
what  have  they  done?  Let  thy  hand,  I  pray  thee,  be 
against  me  and  against  my  father's  house."  ^®  There  is 
also  the  significant  fact  that  the  oldest  body  of  laws  in  the 
Old  Testament,  the  Code  of  the  Covenant,*^  imposes  pen- 
alties only  upon  the  offenders  themselves.  The  murderer, 
the  idolater,  the  sorceress,  and  others  were  to  be  put  to 
death,  but  nothing  is  said  about  the  punishment  of  their 
families.  Furthermore,  there  is  the  doctrine  of  the  rem- 
nant which  seems  to  have  antedated  literary  prophecy. 
In  the  time  of  Elijah  there  were  the  seven  thousand  that 


^'-  Gen.  7.  I,  22 f.,  J. 
''  Gen.  19,  J. 
"  Num.  14.  24,  E. 
*'*2  Kings  14.  5-6. 
*"  2  Sam.  24.  17. 
■"  Exod.  21-23. 

335 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

had  not  bowed  the  knee  to  Baal,  who  were  to  escape  the 
general  doom.*^  And  so  in  Amos^^  and  Isaiah,^*^  espe- 
cially the  latter,  there  are  references  to  a  remnant  that  is 
to  be  saved.  It  may  seem  strange  that  greater  promi- 
nence is  not  given  to  this  thought  by  the  eighth-century 
prophets.  But  it  should  be  borne  in  mind  that  the  mis- 
sion of  these  men  was  to  the  nation,  not  the  individual, 
and  that  in  the  face  of  grave  national  peril  the  greater 
danger  to  the  state  inevitably,  even  in  a  period  of  de- 
veloped individualism,  tends  to  turn  attention  away  from 
the  individual.  Still  the  mere  existence  of  the  idea  of  a 
remnant  makes  it  clear  that  in  the  thought  of  these 
prophets  the  nation  was  not,  from  the  religious  point  of 
view,  an  "undivided  whole." 

In  so  far  as  the  individual  did  not  share  in  the  fate  of 
the  nation  or  the  group  to  which  he  belonged,  it  was  im- 
plied that  a  distinct  law  of  retribution  applied  to  him. 
And  that  this  was  a  common  idea  in  early  Israel  is  fully 
attested.  Yahweh  acts  as  judge  in  the  relation  of  indi- 
vidual men  to  each  other,  and  rewards  and  punishes  them 
according  to  their  deeds.  Not  only  does  this  underlie  the 
legal  procedure  of  early  times,^^  it  is  expressed  and  illus- 
trated again  and  again  in  the  early  historical  narratives. 
In  the  trouble  that  arose  between  Abraham  and  Sarah 
over  the  handmaid  Hagar,  Sarah  says,  "Jehovah  judge 
between  me  and  thee."  ^^  In  i  Sam.  2.  25,  in  what  looks 
like  a  proverbial  saying,  we  read,  "If  one  man  sin  against 
another,  God  shall  judge  him;"  and  in  2  Sam.   3.  39 


**i  Kings  19.  18. 
"5.  15. 

^7.  31  10.  20ff. 

*"  Compare  Exod.  23.  7. 
'-Gen.  16.  5,  J. 

336 


NATIONALISM  AND  INDIVIDUALISM 

David,  referring  to  Joab's  assassination  of  Abner,  says, 
"Jehovah  reward  the  evildoer  according  to  his  wicked- 
ness." In  I  Sam.  26.  23  Yahweh,  we  are  told,  "will 
render  to  every  man  his  righteousness  and  his  faithful- 
ness." He  rewards  Abraham  for  his  hospitality,^^  and 
the  Hebrew  midwives  for  their  courage.^*  He  punishes 
Nabal  for  his  churlishness^^  and  Abimelech  for  the 
murder  of  his  brethren.^''  Repeatedly  we  meet  the 
formula,  "God  do  so  and  so  to  me,  if  I  do  or  fail  to  do  so 
and  so,"  ^^  and  the  instances  in  which  the  sufferings  and 
misfortunes  of  the  individual  are  attributed  to  his  sins  are 
almost  numberless. ^^ 

The  idea  of  individual  retribution  naturally  carried  with 
it  the  thought  that  the  individual  was  also  an  object  of  the 
divine  care.  And  the  evidence  for  the  existence  of  this 
belief  in  early  Israel  is  equally  clear  and  conclusive.  The 
names  given  children  testify  to  it.  "Jonathan,"  for  in- 
stance, means  "Yahweh  has  given" ;  "Joshua,"  "Yahweh 
has  delivered";  "Jozabad,"  "Yahweh  has  bestowed"; 
"Joiada,"  "Yahweh  knows";  and  so  on.  Only  the  belief 
in  a  special  and  individual  Providence  could  have 
prompted  such  names.  And  so  with  the  prayers  and 
offerings  of  individuals.  These  manifestly  presuppose  a 
God  who  cares  for  the  private  needs  of  men.  The  servant 
of  Abraham  in  his  quest  for  a  wife  for  his  master's  son,^^ 
Ishmael  and  Samson  in  their  thirst,^*^  Hanna  in  her  bar- 


'  Gen.  18,  J. 

'Exod.  I.  21,  P, 

'  I  Sam.  25.  39. 

'Judg.  9.  S4f. 

'  Compare  i  Sam.  20.  13 ;  25.  22;  2  Sam.  3.  9;  2  Kings  6.  31. 

'  Compare  i  Kings  17.  18. 

'Gen.  24.  I2ff.,  J. 

'Gen.  21.  I5ff..  E;  Judg.  15.  18. 

237 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

renness,®^  Hezekiah  in  his  illness, ^^  all  seek  the  divine  aid, 
and  Yahweh  hears  them.  It  is  evident  from  such  in- 
stances as  these  and  many  others  that  the  early  Israelite 
felt  free  to  bring  his  every  need  to  Yahweh.  From  him 
came  every  blessing;  deliveirance  from  danger®^  and  suc- 
cess in  any  enterprise,^*  as  well  as  the  products  of  the 
soil^^  and  the  fruit  of  the  womb.®^ 

In  the  light  of  the  foregoing  facts  it  is  clear  that  the 
individual  had  an  assured  place  in  the  religion  of  Israel 
long  before  the  time  of  Jeremiah.  The  attempt,  it  is  true, 
has  been  made  to  destroy  or  weaken  the  force  of  these 
facts  by  claiming  that  they  relate  for  the  most  part  to 
exceptional  individuals,  men  who  were  representatives  of 
the  nation  or  for  some  reason  favorites  of  the  Deity, 
and  that  consequently  no  conclusion  can  properly  be 
drawn  from  these  facts  concerning  the  religious  worth  of 
individuals  in  general.  But  while  it  is  true  that  the 
stories,  for  instance,  of  the  patriarchs  fit  at  present  into 
the  framework  of  the  national  history,  this  was  not  orig- 
inally the  case.  They  existed,  to  begin  with,  independ- 
ently of  each  other  and  of  any  distinct  national  reference. 
Hence  "what  is  revealed  in  them  as  to  God's  relation  to 
certain  men  was  told  of  his  relation  to  them  as  men  first 
and  as  representatives  afterwards."  ^"^  Furthermore  the 
effort  to  bring  the  life  of  every  early  Old  Testament  char- 
acter into  conscious  relation  to  the  nation  leads  necessarily 
to  a  farfetched  and  artificial  type  of  interpretation. 

"  I  Sam.  I. 

"■2  Kings  20.  iff. 

"^i  Sam.  17.  37. 

*'  Gen.  27.  20 ;  43.  23,  J. 

"  I  Kings  17.  I,  14. 

""  Gen.  30.  2,  E. 

"'  A.  C.  Welch,  The  Religion  of  Israel  under  the  Kingdom,  p.  25. 

338 


NATIONALISM  AND  INDIVIDUALISM 

It  is  not,  therefore,  strange  that  such  a  scholar  as 
Smend,  who  had  held  to  the  older  and  more  rigorous 
theory  concerning  the  place  of  the  individual  in  early- 
Israel,  later  changed  his  view.  In  the  second  edition  of 
his  Alttestamentliche  Religionsgeschichte  (1899)  he  ad- 
mits that  the  early  Israelite  regarded  himself  as  standing 
in  a  direct  relation  to  Yahweh,  but  now  contends  that  his 
private  affairs  were  not  brought  before  the  Deity  with  the 
same  confidence  as  were  those  of  a  public  or  national 
character.  "For  that,"  he  says,  "they  were  too  small. 
The  individual  looked,  indeed,  with  a  certain  hope  toward 
Yahweh,  but  faith  in  him  in  the  proper  sense  of  the  term 
he  did  not  have."  ^^  And  so  Robertson  Smith  tells  us  that 
"in  ancient  religion,  as  it  appears  among  the  Semites,  the 
confident  assurance  of  divine  help  belongs,  not  to  each 
man  in  his  private  concerns,  but  to  the  community  in  its 
public  functions  and  public  aims.  .  .  .  The  gods  had 
their  favorites  no  doubt,  for  whom  they  were  prepared  to 
do  many  things  that  they  were  not  bound  to  do;  but  no 
man  could  approach  his  god  in  a  purely  personal  matter 
with  that  spirit  of  absolute  confidence  .  .  .  characteristic 
of  antique  religions."  ^^  In  support  of  this  view  as  applied 
to  early  Israel  Smend  gives  but  one  citation.  He  quotes 
the  words  of  Hannah,  "//  thou  wilt  indeed  look  on  the 
affliction  of  thy  handmaid,  and  remember  me,  and  not 
forget  thy  handmaid,"  ''^  as  though  these  words  implied  a 
lack  of  confidence  on  her  part  in  her  approach  to  Yahweh. 
But  in  Num.  21.  2,  (J)  substantially  the  same  expression 
is  put  into  the  mouth  of  the  whole  people.  Israel  says, 
"//  thou  wilt  indeed  deliver  this  people  into  my  hand." 

"'P.  103 


Religion  of  the  Semites,  p.  266f.,  263. 
I  Sam.  I.  II. 


339 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

We  consequently  conclude  that,  so  far  as  any  specific 
statement  is  concerned,  there  is  no  basis  in  the  Old  Testa- 
ment for  the  line  of  distinction  drawn  by  Smend  and 
Robertson  Smith  between  the  faith  of  the  individual  and 
that  of  the  nation.  No  doubt  the  individual  as  a  rule  felt 
a  greater  degree  of  confidence  in  the  future  of  the  nation 
than  in  his  own  future.  But  that  he  regarded  the  bond 
between  Yahweh  and  Israel  as  indissoluble,  as  is  com- 
monly claimed,  is  open  to  serious  question.  The  priests 
of  Babylon  ascribed  the  fall  of  their  city  and  the  triumph 
of  Cyrus  to  the  anger  of  their  god,  Marduk.'^^  And  that 
a  similar  possibility  may  have  presented  itself  to  the  minds 
of  the  early  Israelites  is  certainly  probable.  Still,  national 
feeling  was  unusually  strong  with  them,  and  at  times  the 
interests  of  the  nation  no  doubt  submerged  those  of  the 
individual.  But  in  the  ordinary  course  of  life  the  primary 
interests  of  men  are  necessarily  personal  and  individual. 
This  must  always  have  been  the  case.  And  if  early  He- 
brew religion  had  not  ministered  in  some  adequate  way 
to  these  interests,  it  is  doubtful  if  it  could  ever  have  at- 
tained to  such  elevation  of  thought  and  feeling  as  is  found 
in  the  preexilic  prophets.  It  is  a  mistake  to  suppose  that 
the  national  loyalty  of  the  individual  Israelite  necessarily 
imposed  upon  him  the  consciousness  of  self-renunciation. 
Rather  did  his  national  loyalty,  in  so  far  as  it  was  self- 
conscious,  contribute  to  his  sense  of  personal  worth. 
Nationalism  and  individualism  in  their  higher  forms,  in- 
stead of  being  mutually  antithetical,  were  really  mutually 
complementary. 

It  is,  therefore,  a  mistake  to  regard  Jeremiah  and  Eze- 

kiel  as  marking  the  beginning  of  individualism.    Individ- 

"  R.  W.  Rogers,  Cuneiform  Parallels  to  the  Old  Testament,  p.  380. 

340 


NATIONALISM  AND  INDIVIDUALISM 

tiallsm  in  their  time  had  had  a  long  history  in  Israel. 
Many  causes  had  contributed  to  its  development.  J.  M. 
Powis  Smith'^^  enumerates  the  following:  the  transi- 
tion from  a  nomadic  or  seminomadic  to  an  agricultural 
and  commercial  life,  the  establishment  of  the  monarchy, 
the  work  of  the  preexilic  sage  and  priest,  the  ethical  teach- 
ing of  the  prophets,  and  also  their  doctrine  of  the  rem- 
nant. Through  these  and  other  agencies  the  individual 
had  gradually  been  coming  to  a  clearer  moral  and  reli- 
gious self-consciousness.  His  sense  of  personal  responsi- 
bility had  been  sharpened,  his  conviction  of  a  divine  ret- 
ribution strengthened,  and  his  assurance  of  the  divine 
care  deepened.  But  the  relation  of  this  growing  individ- 
ualism to  older  ideas  and  customs  had  not  been  made  the 
subject  of  reflection.  "Ancient  Israel  was  not  accus- 
tomed to  reflect,  and  so  established  no  dogma  concerning 
the  relation  of  the  individual  to  the  group."  "^^  As  in 
Greece,  so  in  Israel,  individualism  coexisted  with  various 
ideas  and  customs  implying  the  moral  solidarity  of 
the  family  and  nation.  And  for  a  long  time  there  was 
apparently  no  consciousness  of  any  conflict  between  these 
divergent  ideas.  Only  slowly  and  gradually  did  this  con- 
sciousness arise.  And  here  it  is  that  the  significance  of 
Jeremiah  and  Ezekiel,  especially  the  latter,  is  to  be  found. 
Ezekiel  brought  out,  as  had  not  been  done  before,  the 
necessary  antithesis  between  a  consistent  individualism 
and  the  traditional  ideas  of  group  solidarity. 

What  Jeremiah's  contribution  to  the  development  of 
individualism  was,  has  been  the  subject  of  considerable 
difference  of  opinion.     There  are  a  number  of  passages 


''-The  Prophet  and  His  Problems,  pp.  174-184. 
''^  Individualismus  und  Socialismus  im  A.   T.,  by  H.  Gunkel  in 
Religion  in  Geschichte  und  Gegcnwart,  vol.  iii, 

341 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

in  the  book  that  bears  his  name,  which  seem  to  anticipate 
the  explicit  teaching  of  Ezekiel.'^*  But  all  these  passages 
have  been  rejected  by  distinguished  critics  either  wholly 
or  in  part  as  later  additions ;  and,  even  though  this  view  be 
incorrect,  as  seems  to  me  probable,  since  similar  passages 
are  to  be  found  in  the  book  of  Deuteronomy,'''^  it  is  still 
true  that  they  occur  only  incidentally  and  form  no  essen- 
tial part  of  the  prophet's  message.  Some  scholars  have 
consequently  fixed  attention  upon  certain  passages  in 
which  the  prophet  seems  to  emphasize  the  sinfulness  of  his 
contemporaries,'^^  and  have  concluded  that  this  was  "the 
furthest  point  reached  by  Jeremiah  in  the  direction  of 
personal  responsibility.  .  .  .  According  to  Jeremiah, 
each  generation  determined  its  own  fate  by  its  attitude 
toward  Yahweh  and  his  demands  for  ethical  righteous- 
ness and  spiritual  worship,  without  any  let  or  hindrance 
due  to  the  rebellious  deeds  of  previous  generations."  '^^ 
But  if  this  were  really  Jeremiah's  thought,  it  would  seem 
that  he  must  have  made  the  contrast  between  the  present 
and  the  past  more  distinct  than  he  has. 

The  true  place  to  look  for  Jeremiah's  contribution  to 
individualism  is  in  those  passages  where  he  lays  bare  his 
own  inner  life:  his  dissatisfaction  with  his  own  lot,  his 
feeling  that  God  had  not  dealt  faithfully  with  him,  his 
consciousness  of  sinfulness,  and  his  conviction  that,  after 
all,  the  chief  good  of  life  is  to  be  found  in  fellowship 
with  God.'^*  Here  we  have,  it  is  true,  no  formal  doctrine 
of  individualism,  but  we  do  have  individualism  in  con- 


^'Jer.  31.  29f. ;  3.  14-16;  12.  iff.;  15.  iff.;  17.  gf. ;  22.  i8£. 

"Deut.  7.  10;  18.  19;  24.  16. 

-"2.  iQff.;  3-  iff.;  5.  iff-;  6.  6ff.;  etc. 

"  J.  M.  Powis  Smith,  The  Prophet  and  His  Problems,  p.  191. 

"  15.  loff. ;  17.  9ff. ;  18.  i8ff. ;  20.  7ff. 

342 


NATIONALISM  AND  INDIVIDUALISM 

Crete  living  expression.  The  prophet  constitutes  a  prob- 
lem to  himself.  His  own  experiences,  as  well  as  the  for- 
tunes of  the  nation,  call  for  explanation.  God  must 
justify  himself  to  the  consciousness  of  the  individual  as 
well  as  in  the  history  of  the  people  as  a  whole.  Such 
was  Jeremiah's  feeling,  and  the  way  in  which  he  worked 
out  his  personal  problem  and  arrived,  in  spite  of  pain  and 
agony  of  soul,  at  the  assurance  of  an  inner  spiritual  fel- 
lowship with  God,  became  without  doubt  a  powerful 
factor  in  promoting  personal  piety.  In  this  connection 
may  also  be  noted  the  prophet's  stress  on  the  inwardness 
of  true  religion.  The  new  covenant  was  to  be  a  covenant 
written  in  the  heart,"^^  and  such  a  covenant  manifestly 
implies  a  direct  personal  relation  of  the  individual  soul  to 
God. 

Ezekiel's  contribution  to  the  development  of  individual- 
ism was  of  a  different  character.  It  was  intellectual 
rather  than  personal.  It  consisted  in  the  announcement 
of  a  principle  rather  than  in  the  inspiration  of  an  example. 
This  does  not,  however,  mean  that  Ezekiel  was  guided  by 
speculative  interest  in  laying  down  his  doctrine  of  indi- 
vidualism. His  purpose  was  distinctly  practical.  The  ex- 
iles of  his  day  were  haunted  by  the  thought  that  they  were 
under  the  ban  of  an  evil  inheritance.  Their  fathers  had 
sinned,  and  they  must  needs  bear  the  penalty;  for  them 
there  was  no  hope.  Or  they  regarded  themselves  as  under 
the  ban  of  their  own  evil  past.  They  had  themselves 
sinned,  and  hence  could  not  hope  to  escape  the  divine 
wrath.  It  was  this  practical  situation  that  led  Ezekiel  to 
lay  down  the  principle  that  every  individual  stands  in 
an  independent  relation  to  Yahweh,  that  his  destiny  is  in 
no  way  determined  by  the  conduct  of  anyone  else,  and  that 

343 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

even  his  own  past  has  forged  no  chains  about  him  which 
he  cannot  break,^**  The  divine  grace,  he  thus  means  to 
say,  is  absolute.  It  knows  no  limits.  Neither  heredity 
nor  the  organic  relation  between  the  past  and  the  present 
offer  any  barrier  to  it. 

In  view  of  the  practical  purpose  thus  underlying  it,  it  is 
not  surprising  that  Ezekiel's  doctrine  of  individualism  is 
somewhat  extreme  and  one-sided,  and  that  he  does  not 
himself  adhere  consistently  to  it.  To  see  that  each  indi- 
vidual must  be  judged  by  his  own  relation  to  Yahweh,  and 
that  only,  was  an  insight  of  great  ethical  and  religious  sig- 
nificance. But  in  his  eagerness  to  enforce  this  truth,  and 
so  to  cut  from  under  the  exiles  all  valid  ground  of  com- 
plaint against  the  divine  justice,  and  at  the  same  time 
assure  them  of  the  certainty  of  the  divine  grace,  Ezekiel 
seems  to  have  overlooked  the  undeniable  fact  of  social 
solidarity  and  also  the  essential  unity  and  continuity  of 
the  individual  life.  He  speaks  as  though  the  act  of  an 
individual  stood  in  no  organic  relation  to  his  own  past  and 
as  though  the  fate  of  an  individual  were  actually  unaf- 
fected by  the  conduct  of  others.  And  yet  at  other  times 
he  seems  to  conceive  of  the  nation  as  a  moral  unit,  in 
whose  fall  the  righteous  would  perish  with  the  wicked.^ ^ 

This  inconsistency  and  one-sidedness  grew  naturally 
out  of  the  varying  practical  motives  by  which  the  prophet 
was  guided.  But  they  were  also  due  to  failure  on  his 
part  to  distinguish  clearly  between  the  ideal  or  eschatolog- 
ical,  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  actual  or  empirical,  on  the 
other.  From  the  former  point  of  view  the  prophet's  as- 
sertion of  the  absolute  independence  of  the  individual  is 
fully  justified.    Ideal  justice  requires  that  each  individual 

*°Ezek.  i8;  33.  loff. ;  14.  12-20. 
"21.  4. 

344 


NATIONALISM  AND  INDIVIDUALISM 

should  suffer  for  his  own  sins  and  for  them  only.  But  in 
a  world  of  heredity  and  social  solidarity  it  is  evident  that 
this  abstract  principle  is  incapable  of  realization.  In  the 
actual  world  about  us  the  innocent  suffer  with  the  guilty. 
The  fathers  eat  sour  grapes  and  the  children's  teeth 
are  set  on  edge.  It  cannot  be  otherwise.  Only  in  a 
better  future  age,  where  other  laws  prevail,  can  the  real 
and  the  ideal  be  brought  into  harmony.  And  this  is  the 
view  expressed  in  Jer.  31.  29 f.  But  in  Ezekiel  the  dis- 
tinction between  the  present  and  the  future  is  less  clearly 
drawn.  Here  the  ideal  principle  of  justice  seems  at  times 
to  be  applied  to  the  present  order  as  well  as  the  future. 
And  yet  this  is  not  quite  Ezekiel's  position.  What  he  is 
interested  in  is  not  the  present  order  as  such,  but  the 
future.  He  is  an  eschatologist.  He  looks  forward  to 
the  speedy  advent  of  a  new  order.  And  so  real  to  him  is 
this  new  age  that  he  judges  the  immediate  present  in  the 
light  of  its  advent.  It  is  from  this  point  of  view  that  his 
apparently  extreme  and  one-sided  individualism  is  to  be 
understood.  In  expounding  it  he  is  thinking  of  the  com- 
ing kingdom,  in  which  the  ideal  moral  law  prevails.  There 
everyone  is  judged  according  to  his  own  merits.  And 
since  this  kingdom  is  almost  at  hand,  its  law  is  already  to 
some  extent  applicable  to  men.  At  its  arrival,  death  must 
necessarily  be  the  lot  of  the  wicked  and  life  the  certain 
reward  of  the  righteous. 

But  whatever  the  practical  purpose  and  eschatological 
ideas  may  have  been  that  lay  back  of  Ezekiel's  doctrine  of 
individualism,  the  actual  influence  of  his  teaching  seems  to 
have  been  largely  independent  of  these  considerations.  In 
the  postexilic  period  individual  retribution  was  commonly 
accepted  as  a  dogma  valid  for  the  normal  experiences  of 

345 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

human  life.  It  was  inculcated  without  reference  to  the 
messianic  hope  and  without  reference  to  any  concrete  sit- 
uation. But  the  point  first  to  be  noted  is  that  Ezekiel's 
successors  in  the  prophetic  office  do  not  deal  with  the 
problem  that  he  raises.  Deutero-Isaiah,  Haggai,  Zech-- 
ariah,  Malachi,  Joel,  and  Jonah  are  all  nationalistic.  They 
may  distinguish  somewhat  more  sharply  than  the  preexilic 
prophets  between  the  two  classes  of  the  righteous  and  the 
wicked  in  Israel,®^  and  at  times  may  also  speak  more  di- 
rectly of  the  redemption  of  individuals.^^  But  on  the 
whole  they  deal  almost  as  exclusively  as  the  earlier 
prophets  with  the  nation  and  its  future.  And  so  it  is  also 
with  the  priestly  successors  of  Ezekiel.  Here  and  there 
we  may  observe  a  slightly  more  developed  individual- 
ism,^^ but  on  the  whole  the  postexilic  law  and  priestly  his- 
tories represent  substantially  the  same  standpoint  as  that 
of  preexilic  times.  The  nation  in  the  racial  sense  is  still 
a  unit,^^  and  the  solidarity  of  the  family  is  still  assumed.^® 
The  true  successors  of  Ezekiel,  so  far  as  his  doctrine  of 
individualism  is  concerned,  were  the  sages.  But  how  far 
they  were  directly  influenced  by  him  is  a  question.  They 
had  no  doubt  inherited  from  the  sages  of  the  preexilic 
period  an  individualistic  type  of  teaching,  and  conditions 
after  the  exile  favored  its  development  on  a  larger  scale. 
The  exile  itself,  while  it  did  not  create  religious  individ- 
ualism, must  have  greatly  stimulated  it.  The  fall  of  the 
state  did  not  put  an  end  to  the  national  hope  of  the  Jews, 
but  it  necessarily  lessened  their  political  activity,  and  so 


"Mai.  3.  13-18;  Isa.  65.  9-16. 

*'  Isa.  43.  6f. ;  Joel  2.  28-39. 

**  For  example,  Num.  16.  22 ;  Neh.  i.  5fif. 

"  Lev.  4.  I3ff. 

^Esth.  9.  I3f. 

346 


NATIONALISM  AND  INDIVIDUALISM 

left  more  time  for  consideration  of  the  problems  of  the 
individual.  Wars  ceased  to  inflame  national  passion,  and 
the  interests  of  peace,  which  are  the  interests  of  the  indi- 
vidual, became  more  prominent.  The  rise  of  the  syna- 
gogue, with  its  stress  on  prayer  and  religious  instruction, 
was  also  individualistic  in  its  tendency.  And  contact  with 
the  more  highly  developed  Babylonian  civilization  and 
later  with  Greek  thought  had  the  same  general  effect. 
These  and  other  forces  operative  at  the  time  make  it  clear 
that  quite  apart  from  Ezekiel  it  is  possible  to  account  for 
the  individualism  of  the  postexilic  sages. 

If  the  later  sages  were  influenced  by  Ezekiel,  they  at 
least  took  their  own  path.  The  most  characteristic  fea- 
ture of  his  teaching,  the  rejection  of  the  older  idea  of 
moral  solidarity,  apparently  made  little  if  any  impression 
upon  them.  They  seem  to  have  accepted  the  common 
idea  that  children  might  be  punished  for  the  sins  of  their 
parents  or  blessed  because  of  their  virtues. ^"^  And  so 
also  with  the  eschatological  background  of  the  prophet's 
teaching.  For  it  they  had  no  place  or  at  least  no  enthusi- 
asm. They  accepted  the  world  as  it  is,  and  tried  to  har- 
monize the  facts  of  life  with  the  principle  of  individual 
retribution.  Difficulties  necessarily  arose,  but  these  they 
glossed  over  with  devices  of  one  kind  and  another. 

Such  was  the  situation  when  the  author  of  the  hook  of 
Job  appeared  upon  the  scene.  His  profound  mind  could 
not  rest  satisfied  with  the  easy  solutions  of  the  past.  They 
were  to  him  but  proverbs  of  ashes.  And  yet  no  final 
solution  presented  itself  to  his  own  mind.  The  problem 
of  suffering  remained  to  him  an  unsolved  mystery  to  the 
end.     But  while  he  was  unable  to  solve  the  problem  he 

"Job  21.  19;  Prov.  20.  7. 

347 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

made  a  very  important  contribution  to  its  solution  by 
asserting  tlie  independence  and  worth  of  the  individual  in 
a  way  that  had  not  been  done  before.  Ezekiel  had  laid 
down  the  principle  of  individual  retribution,  and  Job  ac- 
cepted it  not  only  as  morally  valid,  but  as  an  ethical  neces- 
sity. When  it  was  suggested  that  God  might  punish  a 
man  by  laying  up  his  iniquity  for  his  children.  Job  re- 
plied : 

"Let  him  recompense  it  unto  himself,  that  he  may 
know  it: 
Let  his  own  eyes  see  his  destruction, 
And  let  him  drink  of  the  wrath  of  the  Almighty. 
For  what  careth  he  for  his  house  after  him. 
When  the  number  of  his  months  is  cut  off?"  ^^ 

But  Job  differed  from  Ezekiel  in  insisting  that  the  law  of 
individual  retribution  was  not  observed  in  the  existing 
order.  The  wicked  often  prosper  while  the  righteous 
suffer.  Against  this  view  was  arrayed  the  prevailing 
tradition,  and  the  very  righteousness  of  God  seemed  to 
rule  it  out.  Nevertheless  Job  boldly  advocated  it.  The 
voice  of  his  own  conscience  attested  its  truth.  And  this 
voice  he  placed  above  the  teaching  of  the  past,  above  the 
apparent  indications  of  Providence,  and  above  the  God  of 
tradition  himself.  As  against  all  these  forces  of  author- 
ity Job  championed  the  rights  of  the  individual,  and 
for  their  vindication  turned  with  longing  and  budding 
faith  to  the  God  of  his  own  ideal,  the  God  demanded  by 
the  enlightened  conscience  of  men.*® 

After  such  an  assertion  as  this  of  the  independence  and 
worth  of  the  individual  only  one  step  remained  before 

''Job  21,  19-21. 

'*Job  16.  2of. ;  19.  25-27. 

348 


NATIONALISM  AND  INDIVIDUALISM 

the  climax  of  religious  individualism  was  reached.  This 
final  step  was  taken  before  the  close  of  the  Old  Testament 
era.  The  righteous  Israelite  was  assured  of  life  everlast- 
ing. How  this  belief  arose  need  not  now  engage  our  at- 
tention. This  question  will  be  dealt  with  in  a  later 
chapter.  For  our  present  purpose  it  is  sufficient  to  direct 
attention  to  the  fact  that  this  culmination  of  individual- 
ism was  not  attained  independently  of  Israelitic  national- 
ism. One  of  our  main  contentions  in  this  chapter  has 
been  that  these  two  tendencies  in  Israel  were  not  neces- 
sarily antagonistic  to  each  other.  The  fall  of  Jerusalem 
in  B.  C.  586  did  not  mean  the  end  of  nationalism  and  the 
beginning  of  individualism.  Both  tendencies  continued 
to  exist  thereafter  and  to  develop.  Nationalism  changed 
to  some  extent  its  form.  It  became  less  political  in  its 
basis  and  more  distinctly  racial  and  ecclesiastical.  But 
as  a  religious  force  it  did  not  weaken.  It  rather  grew  in 
strength  as  a  result  of  the  work  both  of  priest  and 
prophet,  until  finally  the  highest  hopes  of  the  nation  com- 
bined with  those  of  the  individual  in  the  doctrine  of  the 
resurrection  of  the  dead.  The  eternal  worth  ascribed  to 
the  nation  was  thus  also  attributed  to  the  individual,  and 
the  two  were  united  in  a  final  synthesis. 

But  this  did  not  end  the  development.  Israelitic  nation- 
alism had  its  limitations  as  well  as  its  positive  value.  It 
had  furnished  the  field  for  the  development  of  a  high  and 
noble  individualism,  and  it  had  given  to  religion  a  social 
character  that  religion  dare  not  lose  without  losing  itself. 
But  along  with  this  it  had  built  up  a  barrier  between  Israel 
and  the  rest  of  the  world,  which  not  only  denied  to  the 
heathen  the  rights  which  were  his,  but  also  made  impos- 
sible the  fullest  development  of  individual  character 
within  Israel  itself.    Not  until  the  solidarity  of  mankind 

349 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

had  taken  the  place  of  the  solidarity  of  Israel,  not  until 
nationalism  had  yielded  to  universalism,  not  until  the  hope 
of  immortality  had  been  extended  to  men  generally,  could 
a  fully  developed  religious  hfe  and  a  perfect  religious 
faith  arise.  This  end  was  not  attained  in  the  Old  Testa- 
ment, but  it  is  nevertheless  to  Israelitic  nationalism  and 
individualism  that  we  must  look  for  the  source  of  the 
Christian  idea  of  the  kingdom  of  God  and  the  Christian 
belief  in  the  immortal  life. 


350 


CHAPTER  XV 
THE  MESSIANIC  HOPE 

The  word  "Messianic"  has  a  twofold  meaning.  It 
may  refer  either  to  the  personal  Messiah  or  to  the  Mes- 
sianic age.  The  latter  is  the  sense  in  which  it  is  here  used. 
By  the  Messianic  hope  we  mean,  therefore,  not  simply  the 
expectation  of  a  Messiah,  but  the  broader  and  more  in- 
clusive belief  in  the  coming  of  the  kingdom  of  God.  In 
this  wider  sense  of  the  term  the  Messianic  hope  is  about 
synonymous  with  the  eschatology  of  the  nation.  It  has 
to  do  with  the  future  of  the  people  of  God  and  everything 
directly  related  thereto. 

The  Messianic  idea  is  consequently  a  complex  one.  It 
embraces  at  least  four  distinct  elements.  Primarily,  it  is 
concerned  with  the  new  age  and  the  redemption  of  Israel, 
but  with  these  ideas  is  associated  the  thought  of  judg- 
ment, a  judgment  both  upon  foreign  nations  and  upon 
Israel,  and  to  this,  again,  is  to  be  added  the  belief 
in  a  personal  Messiah.  These  different  elements  sustain 
a  manifest  relation  to  each  other,  but  the  last  is  a  less 
constant  factor  than  the  other  three.  In  not  a  few  de- 
scriptions of  the  future  no  mention  is  made  of  the  Mes- 
siah. His  place  is  taken  either  by  Yahweh  himself  or  by 
the  idealized  nation.  Indeed,  there  are  two  notable  pas- 
sages, one  dealing  with  the  Suffering  Servant^  and  the 
other  with  the  Son  of  Man,^  in  which  it  is  uncertain 

'  Isa.  53. 
*  Dan.  7.  I3f. 

3SI 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

whether  an  individual  redeemer  is  referred  to  or  ideal 
Israel.  But  while  the  belief  in  a  personal  Messiah  was 
not  essential  to  the  Messianic  hope  of  the  Israelites,  it  did 
neveirtheless  form  an  important  element  in  it,  and  in  the 
later  Christian  Messianism  became  the  central  factor. 

Concerning  the  origin  and  value  of  the  Messianic  hope 
there  is  wide  difference  of  opinion.  In  reicent  times  the 
tendency  has  been  to  regard  it  as  a  comparatively  late  de- 
velopment. Whatever  basis  it  may  have  had  in  the  pop- 
ular religion  of  an  earlier  period,  it  was  not,  we  are  told, 
until  the  exile  that  it  became  a  constituent  element  in  what 
might  be  called  Old  Testament  religion.  Ezekiel  was  "the 
father  of  the  Messianic  expectation."  ^  With  him  orig- 
inated the  eschatology  of  the  Old  Testament,*  and  from 
him  went  forth  those  influences  which  developed  into  the 
later  apocalyptic  literature.  This  type  of  thought,  it  is 
said,  stands  opposed  to  the  genuinely  prophetic,  and 
represents  a  decline.  Apocalypticism  did  not  grow 
naturally  out  of  existing  conditions,  as  did  the  teach- 
ing of  the  prophets,  but  was  an  artificial  construction.  It 
dealt  with  fantastic  and  impossible  conceptions  of  Israel's 
future  glory,  and  was  permeated  with  a  narrow  national 
feeling  quite  foreign  to  the  stern  ethical  tone  and  judicial 
impartiality  of  the  preexilic  prophets.  The  latter  were  in 
their  whole  spirit  opposed  to  apocalypticism.  It  is,  then, 
impossible  that  they  should  have  written  the  Messianic 
prophecies  now  found  in  their  books.  These  prophecies 
belong  to  a  later  age  and  reflect  a  different  state  of 
thought,  one  which  is  for  us  largely  obsolete.  Certain 
features  of  the  later  Messianism  may  have  for  us  an  his- 

*  H.  P.  Smith,  The  Religion  of  Israel,  p.  243, 

■*  Wellhausen,  Israclitischc  und  Jiidische  Geschichte,  pp.  152,  197 ; 
B.  Stade,  Diblische  Theologie  dcs  Altcn  Testaments,  p.  295. 

352 


THE  MESSIANIC  HOPE 

torical  interest,  but  in  its  essential  nature  it  fails  to  appeal 
to  us.  There  is  about  it  too  much  of  detachment  from 
the  actual  world,  too  little  sense  of  reality,  and  too 
much  of  narrow  and  unethical  nationalism  for  it  to  com- 
mend itself  to  the  modern  mind.  We  are,  therefore, 
forced  to  regard  it  as  a  quite  subsidiary  and  transitory 
element  in  the  religious  teaching  of  the  Old  Testament. 

This  view  concerning  the  origin  and  character  of  the 
Messianic  hope  is  one  at  present  widely  held.^  But  dur- 
ing the  last  few  years  a  reaction  has  set  in  against  it.  It 
is  now  contended  by  a  number  of  distinguished  scholars^ 
that  the  Messianic  hope  not  only  had  a  place  in  the  teach- 
ing of  the  preexilic  prophets,  but  that  it  antedated  literary 
prophecy  and  is  to  be  carried  back  almost  to  the  beginning  y^ 
of  the  nation's  history.  This  view  naturally  gives  to  the  ' 
Messianic  eschatology  a  new  significance.  It  teaches  us 
that  Messianism  was  not  a  later  and  more  or  less  super- 
fluous addition  to  the  real  structure  of  Hebrew  thought, 
but  that  it  formed  a  constituent  element  in  it.  It  was, 
throughout  at  least  the  most  important  part  of  Israel's 
history,  the  bearer  of  her  higher  hopes,  the  support  and 
stimulus  of  her  ethical  idealism.  The  teaching  of  the 
great  preexilic  prophets,  as  well  as  that  of  the  prophets 
and  psalmists  of  a  later  period,  can  be  fully  understood 


'It  should  be  added  that  all  who  hold  to  the  late  origin  of  the 
Messianic  hope  do  not  share  in  the  low  estimate  of  its  value.  See, 
for  instance,  B.  Stade,  "Die  messianischc  Hoffnung  hn  Psalter,"  in 
Zeitschrift  fur  Theologie  und  Kirche,  1892,  pp.  369-413,  and  R.  H. 
Charles,  Eschatology  and  The  Religious  Development  Between  the 
Old  and  New  Testaments. 

"  H.  Gressmann,  Der  Ursprung  der  israelitisch-jUdischen  Escha- 
tologie;  E.  Sellin,  Der  alttestamentliche  Prophetismus ;  H.  Gunkel, 
Schopfung  und  Chaos,  and  Ausgewdhlte  Psalmen;  A.  C.  Welch, 
The  Religion  of  Israel  under  the  Kingdom. 

353 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

only  in  its  light.  Their  message  is  raised  to  a  higher 
power,  if  we  put  back  of  it  a  more  or  less  developed 
eschatology. 

From  this  it  is  evident  that  the  question  concerning  the 
time  when  the  Messianic  hope  originated  is  one  of  consid- 
erable importance.  But  before  we  pass  to  a  consideration 
of  this  problem,  there  is  another  which  calls  for  attention. 
It  has  of  late  been  argued  that  the  Messianic  hope  of  the 
Israelites  was  of  foreign  origin.  The  argument  rests  in 
part  on  certain  conceptions  in  Old  Testament  eschatology, 
such  as  the  catastrophic  end  of  the  present  order  and  the 
return  of  paradisiacal  conditions,  which,  it  is  claimed, 
cannot  have  originated  on  Palestinian  soil.'^  But  a  more 
direct  and  somewhat  more  substantial  basis  for  the  theory 
is  furnished  by  certain  parallels  to  the  Messianic  hope 
which,  it  is  claimed,  have  been  discovered  in  Babylonia 
and  especially  in  Egypt.  Only  the  Egyptian  texts  need 
here  concern  us.  There  are  several  papyri  dating  from 
widely  different  periods  of  Egyptian  history,  which  de- 
scribe a  state  of  desolation  and  ruin,  of  cosmic  disorder 
and  social  anarchy,  followed  by  one  of  peace  and  pros- 
perity introduced  by  a  new  and  ideal  ruler.  Of  these 
papyri  there  are  two  of  special  importance,  the  Papyrus 
Golenischeff,^  as  it  is  sometimes  called,  and  the  Admoni- 
tions of  Ipuwer.  The  story  contained  in  the  first  is  sup- 
posed to  date  from  about  B.  C.  2000,  though  it  purports 
to  come  from  the  time  of  King  Snefru,  about  B.  C.  2930. 

'  For  an  elaborate  exposition  of  this  part  of  the  argument,  see 
H.  Gressmann,  Dcr  Urspnmc/  dcr  israclitisch-jiidischcn  Eschatol- 
ogie;  and  for  a  brief  criticism,  Eduard  Konig,  Geschichte  der  alt- 
tcstamcntlichcn  Keliyion,  pp.  329-337. 

"For  the  text,  see  H.  Gressmann,  Altorientalische  Tcxte  und 
Bilder,  pp.  204ff. 

354 


THE  MESSIANIC  HOPE 

It  was  apparently  written  in  glorification  of  Amenemhet 
I,  the  founder  of  the  Twelfth  Dynasty,  and  was  a  vaticin- 
ium  ex  evenfu.  This  seems  also  to  have  been  the  case 
with  most  of  the  Egyptian  "prophecies,"  if  we  may  judge 
from  the  few  and  isolated  fragments  that  have  come  down 
to  us.  They  were  not  really  prophecies,  but  were  written 
to  glorify  the  reigning  monarch.  It  was  a  common  idea 
among  the  Egyptians  that  the  Sun-god  Re  was  the  first 
king  of  Egypt,  and  that  his  reign  was  the  golden  age  of 
the  world.  It  became,  therefore,  natural  for  courtiers  to 
speak  of  the  kings  of  their  own  day  as  sons  of  Re.  It  is 
this  idea  that  underlies  the  prediction  recorded  in  the 
Papyrus  Westcar,  a  document  coming  from  the  eighteenth 
century  B.  C,  in  which  a  divine  paternity  is  ascribed 
to  the  founders  of  the  Fifth  Dynasty.  A  somewhat  dif- 
ferent conception,  however,  appears  in  the  Admonitions 
of  Ipuwer,  dating  from  about  B.  C.  1300.^  This  sage 
condemns  the  reigning  king  as  the  source  of  the  grievous 
evils  of  his  time,  and  then  by  way  of  contrast  describes 
the  ideal  king,  as  represented  by  the  Sun-God  Re.  "He 
is  the  shepherd  of  all  men.  There  is  no  evil  in  his  heart." 
We  have  here  no  distinct  prediction  that  the  ideal  king  will 
come,  but  the  hope  that  he  would  is  at  least  expressed. 
"Where,"  says  Ipuwer,  "is  he  to-day?  Doth  he  sleep  per- 
chance ?    Behold  his  might  is  not  seen." 

On  the  basis  of  these  texts,  especially  the  last,  it  is  con- 
fidently asserted  that  the  Messianic  hope  of  the  Hebrews 
was  derived  from  the  Egyptians. ^^    We  have,  it  is  said. 


®  See  Alan  H.  Gardiner,  The  Adinonitions  of  an  Egyptian  Sage; 
and  J.  H.  Breasted's  Development  of  Religion  and  Thought  in 
Ancient  Egypt,  pp.  203-216. 

"*  See  Eduard  Meyer,  Die  Israeliten  und  ihre  Nachbarstamme, 
pp.  451-455- 

355 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

in  the  prophecies  of  both  peoples  the  same  general  form 
of  threat  and  promise,  the  same  idea  of  a  perfect  ruler, 
and  the  same  conception  of  the  return  of  paradise,  A 
point  that  Gressmann  especially  emphasizes  is  the  fact 
that  the  idea  of  a  Messianic  King  does  not  harmonize,  as 
it  would  if  it  were  of  native  origin,  with  the  Israelitic  con- 
ception of  the  paradise  of  the  past,  Israel  knows  nothing 
of  a  primeval  paradise-king.  Her  monarchy  was  of  too  re- 
cent origin  to  make  possible  such  a  view.  This  view,  says 
Gressmann,  "must  have  its  source  among  a  people  whose 
kingdom  is  rooted  in  the  oldest  times,  even  out  of  mind, 
who  cannot  at  all  imagine  a  life  without  a  king  and  for 
whom  it  is  necessary  to  think  of  the  first  man  as  the  first 
king."  ^*  This  was  the  case  in  Egypt.  It  is  consequently 
there  that  we  must  look  for  the  origin  of  the  idea  of  a 
paradise-king  both  of  the  past  and  the  future.  And  it  is 
to  this  same  source  that  we  must  trace  the  deification  of 
the  Messiah,  the  representation  of  him  as  Mighty  God, 
Everlasting  Father,  Prince  of  Peace.  This  idea  cannot 
have  had  its  origin  among  the  Israelites,  but  must  have 
come  from  a  people  like  the  Egyptians,  "who  were  ac- 
customed to  elevate  their  kings  into  the  god's  sphere  and 
who  made  no  great  difference  between  a  king  and  a  god." 
But  ingenious  as  this  derivation  of  the  Messianic  hope  is, 
it  can  hardly  be  said  to  be  convincing.  It  is  quite  pos- 
sible, as  Breasted  says,  that  "the  pamphlets  of  Ipuwer 
and  the  men  of  his  class"  may  somehow  have  "entered 
Palestine  and  suggested  to  the  idealists  of  Israel  the  con- 
ception of  the  righteous  king  and  redeemer."  Or  it  may 
be,  as  Gressmann  holds,  that  the  Canaanites,  under  Egyp- 
tian influence,  came  to  think  of   Melchizedek  as  their 

"  "The  Sources  of  Israel's  Messianic  Hope,"  in  American  Journal 
of  Theology,  1913,  p.  188. 

356 


THE  MESSIANIC  HOPE 

Messianic  king,^^  and  that  what  they  expected  of  him  was 
later  transferred  by  the  Hebrews  to  David.  But  these 
theories  at  the  best  represent  mere  possibihties,  and 
neither  is  necessary  to  account  for  the  origin  of  the  Mes- 
sianic hope  of  the  IsraeHtes. 

This  hope  in  a  primitive  form  is  one  that  we  should 
expect  to  arise  among  different  peoples.  It  has  its  mani- 
fest psychological  roots.  It  grows  out  of  the  native  dis- 
content of  the  human  mind  with  existing  conditions  and 
out  of  the  natural  tendency  of  men  to  idealize  what  is  dis- 
tant in  time.  It  was  in  this  way  that  the  widespread  be- 
lief in  a  golden  age  of  the  past  arose,  and  the  correspond- 
ing view  of  the  future  would  naturally  originate  in  the 
same  manner.  There  is  no  need  to  suppose  that  all  expec- 
tations of  a  glorious  future  emanated  from  one  source. 
They  may  have  arisen  independently  in  different  lands, 
and  then,  as  they  developed,  have  to  some  extent  influ- 
enced each  other.  In  this  way  the  Messianic  hope  of  the 
Israelites  may  have  received  various  accretions  from  par- 
allel developments  in  Egypt,  Babylonia,  and  other  coun- 
tries. But  what  was  thus  borrowed  was  not  the  hope 
itself.  The  invincible  optimism  that  lay  back  of  Israel's 
Messianism  could  not  have  been  borrowed.  It  was  a 
native  growth.  And  so  also  with  those  great  conceptions 
that  give  permanent  value  to  Old  Testament  eschatology  x 
— the  idea  of  a  divine  world-plan,  of  a  universal  moral 
government,  and  of  the  coming  of  the  kingdom  of  God. 
These  conceptions  are  the  unique  creation  of  Israelitic 
genius.  Nowhere  else  do  we  find  anything  comparable  to 
them  either  in  range  or  intensity,  in  moral  earnestness  or 
spiritual  power.  They  have  no  parallels  in  any  other 
land. 


'"Gen.  14;  Psa.  no.  4. 

357 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

We  turn  now  to  the  question  as  to  when  the  Messianic 
hope  took  its  rise  in  Israel.  Was  it  a  late  development, 
or  did  it  have  a  place  in  the  teaching  of  the  eighth-century 
prophets,  and  even  before  their  time?  In  considering  this 
question  it  will  be  well  to  treat  the  different  elements  in 
the  Messianic  hope  separately,  and  also  to  discuss  the  de- 
velopment of  each  idea  along  with  the  question  of  its 
origin.  The  Messianic  hope  embraces,  as  we  have  seen, 
in  addition  to  the  general  thought  of  a  new  age,  the  idea 
/f  of  judgment,  of  redemption,  and  of  the  Messiah.  The 
character  of  the  new  age  may  naturally  be  discussed  in 
connection  with  the  idea  of  redemption.  So  we  have 
three  main  lines  of  inquiry  to  pursue. 

We  begin  with  the  idea  of  judgment.  It  is  a  common 
opinion  that  it  was  Amos  who  first  announced  an  ap- 
proaching day  of  doom.  There  was  current  in  his  time  a 
belief  in  the  day  of  Yahweh,^^  a  day  on  which  Yahweh 
would  manifest  himself  in  some  marvelous  way;  and  to 
this  belief  Amos  attached  himself.  But  his  conception  of 
the  day  was  almost  the  direct  reverse  of  that  current 
among  the  people.  According  to  their  view,  it  contained 
no  threat  of  doom  to  Israel,  but  was  to  be  for  her  a  day 
of  triumph.  This  belief,  it  is  said,  grew  up  out  of  the 
evil  conditions  which  followed  the  division  of  the  mon- 
archy.^* Such  conditions  the  people  felt  could  not  per- 
manently continue;  Yahweh  must  intervene  on  their  be- 
half. And  so  they  began  to  look  forward  to  a  day  of 
Yahweh,  "a.  great  day  of  battle  on  which  Yahweh  would 
place  himself  at  the  head  of  the  armies  of  Israel  and  lead 
them  on   to   overwhelmin;g  victory   over  all   their   en- 


"Amos  5.  18. 

"B,  Stade,  Biblischc  Thcologic,  p.  213. 

358 


THE  MESSIANIC  HOPE 

emies."  ^^  The  expected  day  was  thus  to  be  to  them  a 
day  of  hght ;  only  to  their  enemies  was  it  to  be  a  day  of 
darkness.  But  this  comfortable  hope  Amos  rudely  set 
aside.  The  day  of  Yahweh  he  declared  was  to  be  not  a 
day  of  national  exaltation,  but  a  day  of  divine  judgment. 
Israel's  enemies  would,  indeed,  be  overthrown  on  that 
day;  but  their  overthrow  would  be  due,  not  to  their  hostil- 
ity to  Israel,  but  to  their  violations  of  the  moral  law.  And 
for  this  very  reason  it  was  certain  that  the  day  of  Yahweh 
would  be  to  Israel  also  a  day  of  doom.  The  divine  justice 
would  be  meted  out  to  her  as  well  as  to  her  enemies.  Her 
territory  as  well  as  that  of  her  neighbors  would  be  over- 
run by  the  Assyrians. 

Such,  it  is  claimed,  was  the  day  of  judgment,  as  it  was 
first  conceived  in  Israel.  It  was  local  and  historical,  an 
impending  political  calamity.  Yet  from  it  developed  the 
later  eschatological  conception.  The  most  important  step 
in  this  direction  was  taken  by  Zephaniah  a  little  over  a 
century  after  the  time  of  Amos.  He  represented  the  im- 
pending doom  as  universal  and  apocalyptic.^^  It  was  not 
to  consist  simply  in  a  foreign  invasion,  but  was  to  be  a 
terrible  world  catastrophe,  in  which  not  only  all  men  but 
even  the  fish  of  the  sea  and  the  birds  of  the  air  were  to  be 
involved.  This  idea  was  developed  further  by  Ezekiel  and 
the  later  apocalyptists,  but  in  its  essential  nature  it  re- 
mained practically  the  same  down  to  New  Testament 
times.  There  was  to  be  a  great  day  of  Yahweh  at  which 
all  his  enemies  were  to  be  finally  overthrown. 

This  view  concerning  the  origin  of  the  idea  of  a  com- 
ing judgment  is  widely  held,  but  weighty  considerations 

"J.  M.  P.  Smith,  "The  Day  of  Yahweh,"  in  American  Journal 
of  Theology,  1901,  p.  512. 
''i.  14-18;  3.  8. 

359 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

may  be  urged  against  it.  For  one  thing  it  is  highly  im- 
probable that  the  world-wide  character  of  the  impending 
doom  was  first  conceived  by  Zephaniah.  So  great  an  ad- 
vance step  could  hardly  have  been  taken  by  a  man  such  as 
he,  who  in  no  other  regard  betrays  any  capacity  for  con- 
structive thought.  Furthermore,  if  the  idea  had  been 
original  with  him,  he  would  naturally  have  presented  it  in 
a  concrete  form  as,  for  instance,  a  world-wide  flood  or 
fire.  But  as  a  matter  of  fact  he  conceives  it  vaguely  and 
indistinctly.  Figures  of  war,  of  a  solar  ecHpse,  and  of  a 
great  consuming  fire  mingle  together  in  his  book  in  a  way 
that  makes  it  plain  that  he  had  no  clear  conception  of  the 
exact  nature  of  the  coming  doom.  Nor  does  he  give  any 
reason  for  its  universality  such  as  we  would  expect  if  the 
idea  had  originated  with  him.  Evidently,  he  was  dealing 
with  traditional  material. 

This  conclusion  is  confirmed  when  we  examine  care- 
fully the  utterances  of  the  eighth-century  prophets.  It  is 
a  mistake  to  suppose  that  these  men  represent  the  ap- 
proaching judgment  as  simply  local  and  historical  in  char- 
acter, as  a  calamity  brought  on  by  an  invading  army. 
Their  conception  of  the  day  of  Yahweh  was  essentially 
the  same  as  that  of  Zephaniah.  There  is  in  it  the  same 
indefiniteness  as  to  the  form  that  the  impending  judgment 
will  take.  War  and  captivity  are  spoken  of,  but  so  also 
are  an  earthquake, ^'^  an  eclipse,^^  a  pestilence,^^  a  de- 
vouring fire,^^  and  an  "overflowing  scourge,"  ^^  whatever 
that  may  be.    There  is  also  in  the  eighth-century  prophets 


"Amos  2.  i3-i6;  8.  8. 

"8.  9- 

"6.  9f. 

~i.  4,  7,  etc.;  7-  4- 

"Isa.  28.  15. 

36Q 


THE  MESSIANIC  HOPE 

the  same  idea  of  the  universahty  of  the  doom.  The  figure 
of  the  edipse  implies  it.  Then,  too,  there  are  more  de- 
finite statements.  In  Isaiah-^  we  read  of  a  "day  of  Je- 
hovah upon  all  that  is  proud  and  haughty,  and  all  that  is 
lifted  up,"  and  Hosea^^  tells  us  of  a  calamity  in  which  the 
fishes  of  the  sea  are  to  be  taken  away  as  well  as  the  beasts 
of  the  field  and  the  inhabitants  of  the  land.  The  doom 
pronounced  by  Amos  and  Isaiah  upon  foreign  nations  is 
also  best  explained  by  their  belief  in  a  world-catastrophe. 
But  this  idea  did  not  originate  even  with  the  eighth- 
century  prophets.  It  was  traditional  with  them  as  well  as 
with  Zephaniah.  This  is  clear  from  the  incidental  and 
indefinite  way  in  which  they  refer  to  it,  and  also  from  the 
fact  that  the  designation  of  it  as  the  day  of  Yahweh  was 
current  among  the  people,  and  evidently  had  been  for 
some  time.  It  was  the  common  idea  that  in  the  approach- 
ing catastrophe  Israel  would  escape.  But  this  conviction 
was  apparently  not  so  strong  and  universal  as  to  leave  the 
people  altogether  free  from  misgivings.  Amos  tells  us 
that  there  were  those  in  his  day  "who  put  far  away  the 
evil  day,"  ^*  and  to  those  who  longed  for  the  day  of  Yah- 
weh he  spoke  in  a  way  that  suggests  that  they  too  knew 
that  there  was  ground  for  the  view  that  the  day  was  one 
to  be  dreaded  rather  than  desired.  "Shall  not,"  he  says, 
"the  day  of  Jehovah  be  darkness,  and  not  light ;  even  very 
dark,  and  no  brightness  in  it?"  -^  The  idea  of  a  remnant 
found  in  Amos  and  Isaiah,  and  current  before  their  time, 
also  points  in  the  same  direction.  In  the  approaching 
catastrophe  some  would  be  saved,  but  not  all.    The  pre- 

^'2.    12. 

^'Hos.  4.  3. 
"6.3. 

"5-20. 

361 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

prophetic  outlook  into  the  future  was  not,  therefore,  one 
of  unmixed  optimism.  There  were  those  who,  Hke 
Micaiah  and  Elijah,  occasionally  predicted  evil  for 
Israel,^^  and  this  Jeremiah  declared  was  characteristic  of 
the  true  prophets  generally  before  his  time.  How  far 
back  the  idea  of  a  day  of  doom  went  we  do  not  know. 
It  may  have  had  its  ultimate  source,  as  Gressmann  holds, 
in  mythological  ideas  concerning  the  end  of  the  world. 
But  in  the  form  in  which  it  appeared  in  Israel  it  must 
from  the  beginning  have  been  connected  with  the  idea  of 
the  unlimited  supremacy  of  Yahweh.  This  supremacy 
had  not  as  yet  been  asserted,  but  some  day  it  would  be. 
In  a  great  day  of  doom,  such  as  people  from  of  old  had 
talked  about,  Yahweh  would  manifest  his  power,  and  the 
privileged  position  of  Israel  would  be  made  clear  to  all 
the  world. 

The  conclusion,  then,  to  which  we  come  is  that  the  idea 
of  a  world-catastrophe  must  be  carried  back  into  the  pre- 
prophetic  period  and  that  it  must  be  regarded  as  having 
formed  the  background  of  the  earliest  group  of  literary 
prophets  as  well  as  those  of  a  later  date.  This  idea  even 
in  its  simplest  form  was  one  of  profound  religious  sig- 
nificance. It  stood,  as  A.  C.  Welch  says,  "for  the  truth 
that  the  world  was  one  and  was  governed  by  one  purpose. 
It  stood  for  the  possibility  of  the  emergence  of  the  eternal 
order  within  the  world  of  time."  The  early  Israelites 
who  accepted  it  "had  learned  to  conceive  of  God  as  spirit- 
ual in  the  sense  that  he  was  not  contained  in,  but  was 
above,  the  world  and  all  it  held."  What  Amos  did  was 
to  give  to  the  conception  a  more  distinctly  ethical  char- 
acter. "Because  of  his  knowledge  of  the  nature  of  Yah- 
weh, the  emergence  of  the  eternal  order  within  the  sphere 

"  I  Kings  18.  i7f. ;  22.  8,  17. 

Z^2 


THE  MESSIANIC  HOPE 

of  time  meant  to  him  the  revelation  of  the  moral  order  of 
the  universe.  To  those  who  listened  to  him  he  declared 
not  only  that  Yah  well  was  about  to  arise  speedily,  but  why 
he  was  to  intervene.  He  was  about  to  assert  the  moral 
basis  of  everything,  and  when  that  manifested  itself,  it 
meant  ruin  to  the  world  of  things  which  Amos  knew."  ^'^ 
This  truth,  so  admirably  expressed  by  Dr.  Welch,  has 
been  to  a  large  extent  overlooked  in  recent  study  of  the 
early  prophets.  The  tendency  has  been  to  explain  all  their 
utterances  from  the  psychological  and  historical  points  of 
view,  blind  to  the  fact  that  the  purely  empirical  and  his- 
torical could  never  have  borne  the  weight  of  the  religious 
faith  which  these  men  possessed.  The  prophets  illus- 
trated their  faith  by  a  pronouncement  of  doom  upon 
things  round  about  them.  But  their  vision  was  never  lim- 
ited to  what  they  saw.  They  viewed  all  things  sub  specie 
ccternitatis. 

The  conception  which  the  early  prophets  had  of  the 
future  judgment  was,  as  we  have  seen,  rather  vague  and 
indefinite.  It  was  to  be  universal,  but  how  it  was  to  be 
carried  out  was  not  a  subject  on  which  they  reflected. 
Their  interests  were  practical.  What  they  were  con- 
cerned about  was  to  point  out  the  causes  of  the  impend- 
ing doom,  and  to  insist  on  its  divine  source  and  certainty. 
In  later  times  the  idea  arose  that  the  expected  catastrophe 
would  not  only  be  universal,  but  would  involve  the  de- 
struction of  the  world.  The  heavens  would  be  rolled  to- 
gether as  a  scroll,  and  the  earth  wax  old  as  a  garment,^^ 
after  which  new  heavens  and  a  new  earth  would  be  cre- 
ated.^^    But  how  this  idea  of  the  end  of  the  world  was  re- 


The  Religion  of  Israel  under  the  Kingdom,  pp.  71,  72,  7;^. 
Isa.  34.  4;  51.  6;  Psa.  102.  2Sf. 
Isa.  65.  17;  66.  22. 

363 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

lated  to  the  Messianic  age  is  not  clear.    Whether  it  was  to 
precede  or  follow  the  new  era  is  not  stated. 

Another  feature  of  the  later  eschatology  that  may  be 
mentioned  is  its  conception  of  the  fate  of  the  heathen. 
The  ethical  principle  laid  down  by  the  earlier  prophets  was 
that  all  powers  hostile  to  Yahweh  should  be  destroyed  in 
the  day  of  doom.  But  how  this  principle  would  be  applied 
to  the  actual  conditions  of  life  was  by  no  means  clear.  To 
those  who  were  narrowly  nationalistic  it  would  mean  the 
destruction  of  the  entire  heathen  world.  To  others,  who 
laid  more  stress  on  individual  piety  and  who  were  broader 
in  their  sympathies,  it  would  mean  that  the  heathen  world 
would  be  treated  in  the  day  of  judgment  in  substantially 
the  same  way  as  Israel  itself.^*^  A  certain  precedence 
might  be  given  to  Israel,  but  the  line  of  cleavage  between 
the  redeemed  and  those  doomed  to  destruction  would  be 
drawn  not  between  Israel  and  the  heathen  world  but 
through  both.  And  as  a  matter  of  fact  these  two  views 
both  receive  expression  in  the  Old  Testament,  though  the 
first  cannot  but  seem  to  us  unduly  prominent.  One  of 
the  least  attractive  features  in  the  Old  Testament  is  the 
unsympathetic  and  bitter  feeling  which  it  frequently  dis- 
plays toward  the  heathen. 

But  the  idea  of  judgment,  prominent  as  it  is  in  Israel's 
sacred  literature,  was  never  the  final  word  of  her  seers. 
It  was  simply  the  foil  to  the  hope  of  redemption  and  the 
new  age.  This  hope,  it  is  commonly  admitted,  can  be 
traced  back  into  the  preprophetic  period.  It  was  implied 
in  the  popular  conception  of  the  day  of  Yahweh.  But  as 
to  the  origin  and  content  of  the  day  of  Yahweh  there  is, 
as  we  have  seen,  considerable  difference  of  opinion.    Ac- 

*'See  Jer,  12.  14-17;  48.  46L;  49.  sf.;  Isa.  19.  20-22. 

364 


THE  MESSIANIC  HOPE 

cording  to  the  view  most  widely  held  it  grew  up  out  of 
the  weakness  and  suffering  that  resulted  from  the  division 
of  the  monarchy,  and  consisted  in  the  hope  of  a  better 
future  for  the  nation  after  a  great  and  glorious  victory 
over  its  enemies.  This  psychological  derivation  of  the 
idea  is  not  in  itself  improbable.  But  it  may  be  remarked 
that  it  is  also  psychologically  conceivable  that  the  idea  had 
its  origin  in  the  national  aspiration  and  growing  con- 
sciousness of  strength  which  characterized  the  Hebrews 
before  the  division  of  the  monarchy.  In  recent  times  a 
great  and  growing  nation  has,  according  to  common  be- 
lief, had  much  to  say  of  "the  day"  when  it  would  settle 
accounts  with  all  its  rivals.  And  it  is  not  impossible  that 
such  a  hope  originated  with  the  ancient  Hebrews  under 
similar  circumstances,  and  then  was  only  made  all  the 
more  intense  by  the  defeats  and  disappointments  of  subse- 
quent centuries.  The  day  of  Yahweh  was  not,  however, 
as  we  have  seen,  confined  to  the  idea  of  military  victory. 
It  was  a  broader  conception.  It  looked  forward  to  a 
marvelous  intervention  on  the  part  of  Yahweh  in  the 
cosmic  as  well  as  the  human  world.  This  intervention, 
according  to  the  popular  belief,  was  to  be  universal  in  its 
extent  and  would  involve  more  or  less  of  peril  to  all 
peoples,  but,  as  far  as  Israel  was  concerned,  it  was  certain 
to  result  in  her  exaltation.  The  chosen  people  would  es- 
cape in  the  day  of  divine  visitation,  and  thereafter  be 
ushered  into  a  new  era  comparable  in  peace  and  prosperity 
to  the  paradise  of  the  past. 

But  what  was  the  attitude  of  the  preexilic  prophets  to 
this  popular  belief?  If  we  accept  the  testimony  of  their 
books  in  the  form  in  which  they  have  come  down  to  us, 
there  can  be  no  doubt  about  the  answer.  They  accepted 
the  traditional  Messianic  hope  in  a  modified  form.    Israel 

365 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

was  not  to  escape  the  impending  doom.  She  was  to  suffer 
all  its  terrors.  But  after  it  was  over  and  the  nation  had 
been  purified,  she  was  to  enjoy  a  glorious  future.  Such 
is  the  manifest  teaching  of  the  early  prophetic  books  in 
their  present  form.  But  of  late  it  has  become  the  fashion 
to  insist  that  such  a  combination  of  threat  and  promise 
on  the  part  of  the  preexilic  prophets  is  psychologically 
unintelligible.  These  men,  it  is  maintained,  were  heralds 
of  doom,  and  for  them  to  have  uttered  such  messages  of 
hope  as  we  find  in  their  books  would  have  been  to  turn  the 
edge  of  all  their  threats.  A  man  cannot  both  threaten 
and  promise  at  the  same  time.  At  least,  if  he  does,  he 
must  establish  some  connection  between  the  two.  But  in 
the  prophetic  books  this  connection  is  usually  lacking. 
Unconditional  promises  stand  side  by  side  with  equally 
unconditional  threats.  That  this  should  originally  have 
been  the  case  is  incredible.  We  must  then  hold  that  most, 
if  not  all,  of  the  Messianic  passages  attributed  to  the  pre- 
exilic prophets^*  were  the  work  of  later  hands,  who 
sought  in  this  way  to  relieve  the  severity  of  the  earlier 
prophetic  utterances. 

But  this  view,  widespread  as  it  is,  rests  on  inadequate 
grounds.  It  assumes  that  the  prophetic  books  are  made 
up  of  connected  discourses,  and  that  these  discourses 
were  originally  arranged  by  the  prophets  themselves  in  a 
logical  or  chronological  order.  This,  however,  is  a  mis- 
take. The  utterances  of  the  prophets  were  not  sermons 
in  the  ordinary  sense  of  the  term,  but  detached  oracles 
or  poems,  usually  brief,  consisting  of  only  a  few  lines. 
Originally  they  were  independent  of  each  other,  and  we 
do  not  know  that  they  were  grouped  together  in  any 

*'For  example,  Amos  9.  8ff. ;  Hos.  2.  I4ff. ;  14.  iff.;  Isa.  2.  1-5; 
4.  2-6;  9.  1-6;  II.  i-io;  Mic.  4-5;  Zeph.  3.  8ff.;  Jer.  30;  31.  23ff. 

366 


THE  MESSIANIC  HOPE 

particular  way  and  published  by  the  prophets  themselves. 
Their  arrangement  and  publication  may  quite  as  well  have 
been  due  to  their  disciples.  In  any  case  the  present  con- 
junction of  threats  and  promises  is  arbitrary.  It  does  not 
mean  that  the  prophets  predicted  doom  and  blessing  at  the  v 
same  time.  These  different  types  of  oracles  grew  out  of 
different  situations  and  different  moods,  and  originally 
had  no  connection  with  each  other.  The  recognition  of 
this  fact  alone  disposes  of  most  of  the  arguments  against 
the  authenticity  of  the  Messianic  passages  in  the  early 
prophetic  books.  The  linguistic  objections  are  most  of 
them  afterthoughts  and  not  especially  significant.  It  may 
also  be  noted  that  no  one  questions  the  fact  that  Isaiah  ^ 
believed  in  the  salvation  of  a  remnant.  And  if  this 
limited  acknowledgment  of  the  divine  grace  coexisted  in 
his  case  with  a  complete  denial  of  it,  there  is  certainly  no 
good  reason  why  we  may  not  also  credit  him  and  other 
preexilic  prophets  "with  being  the  authors  of  the  prom- 
ises or  Messianic  hopes,  which  have  no  limit  at  all."  The 
sharp  antithesis  which  some  have  sought  to  establish  be- 
tween the  prophetic  message  of  doom  and  the  Messianic 
hope  has,  it  may  be  admitted,  a  certain  basis  in  logic. 
But  such  antitheses  belong  for  the  most  part  to  the  realm 
of  the  abstract.  In  the  real  world  what  we  usually  find 
is  compromise;  the  principle  that  obtains  is  not  Either- 
Or  but  Both-And. 

We  conclude,  therefore,  that  the  preexilic  prophets 
shared  to  some  extent  in  the  Messianic  hope  of  their  day. 
They  gave  to  it  a  more  distinctly  ethical  character  than 
had  been  done  before,  declaring  that  its  realization 
was  dependent  on  repentance  and  moral  regeneration. 
They  made  righteousness  the  essential  characteristic  of 
the  new  kingdom,  and  insisted  that  before  its  establish- 

367 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

ment  Israel  would  be  visited  by  a  terrible  divine  judgment. 
But  in  other  respects  they  shared  in  the  common  view 
that  there  was  to  be  a  glorious  future  for  the  chosen 
people.  This  future  was  not  to  consist  simply  in  the  re- 
demption of  Israel  from  captivity,  but  in  a  marvelous 
transformation  of  the  entire  world.  War  was  to  cease. 
All  the  peoples  of  the  world  were  to  be  united  together 
under  the  spiritual  leadership  of  Israel.^^  ^j^^^  ^ot  only 
was  there  to  be  peace  among  men.  There  was  to  be  a 
covenant  also  "with  the  beasts  of  the  field,  and  with  the 
birds  of  the  heavens,  and  with  the  creeping  things  of  the 
ground."  ^^  "The  wolf  shall  dwell  with  the  lamb,  and  the 
leopard  shall  lie  down  with  the  kid.  .  .  .  The  sucking 
child  shall  play  on  the  hole  of  the  asp,  and  the  weaned 
child  shall  put  his  hand  on  the  adder's  den."  ^*  The  inani- 
mate world  also  is  to  be  changed.  The  soil  is  to  become 
supernaturally  productive.  "The  plowman  shall  over- 
take the  reaper,  and  the  treader  of  grapes  him  that  soweth 
seed ;  and  the  mountains  shall  drop  sweet  wine,  and  all  the 
hills  shall  melt."  ^^ 

This  anticipated  transformation  of  nature  is  not  to  be 
understood  in  a  purely  figurative  sense.  It  was  a  real 
change  to  which  the  prophets  looked  forward.  And 
underlying  this  expectation  there  is  a  profound  truth. 
"In  the  divine  plan,"  as  Professor  Bowne  says,  "nature  is 
adjusted  to  man  quite  as  much  as  man  is  adjusted  to 
nature.  Each  is  in  a  way  the  counterpart  of  the  other, 
and  hence  it  is  permitted  to  say  that  if  human  society 
should  pass  into  higher  spiritual  development  so  that  it 

*^  Isa.  2.  2-4. 
"Hos.  2.  18. 
"Isa.  II.  6,  8. 
*°  Amos  9.  13. 

368 


THE  MESSIANIC  HOPE 

could  be  trusted  with  greater  powers  and  opportunities, 
the  environment  would  change  to  correspond.  The  larger 
spiritual  life  would  have  a  better  and  fairer  physical  set- 
ting, and  nature  would  become  the  more  pliant  instrument 
and  effective  servant  of  humanity."  ^^  But  while  this 
truth  underlay  the  prophetic  hope,  there  is  one  important 
regard  in  which  the  thought  of  the  prophets  differs  from 
ours.  We  look  for  an  eternal  kingdom  beyond  the  lim- 
its of  time  and  sense.  But  not  so  the  ancient  seers.  They 
thought  of  the  kingdom  of  God  "as  coming  to  fruition 
within  time  and  on  the  earth."  They  looked  for  the 
"emergence  of  eternity  in  the  sphere  of  time."  And  "in 
order  that  this  might  be,  there  was  need  for  a  supreme 
intervention  of  Yahweh:  the  divine  kingdom  must  be 
set  up  through  God's  direct  action,  and  could  only  endure 
through  God's  presence."  ^"^ 

As  to  the  extent  to  which  nature  would  be  affected  by 
this  divine  intervention  there  are  different  representations 
in  the  Old  Testament.  The  most  advanced  is  the  one  that 
looks  forward  to  the  complete  end  of  the  present  order 
and  the  creation  of  new  heavens  and  a  new  earth.^^  But 
the  most  important  thing  about  the  new  age  was  not  the 
change  in  the  outward  conditions  of  life.  This  change 
was  to  be  real,  but  its  primary  significance  did  not  lie  in 
the  new  sense-satisfactions  which  it  would  bring.  In  its 
essential  nature  the  outward  change  was  after  all  but  a 
symbol  of  an  inward  spiritual  change.  This  is  a  fact 
that  needs  to  be  borne  in  mind  in  estimating  what  has  been 
termed  the  eudemonism  of  the  Old  Testament  as  a  whole. 
The  natural  blessings  of  life  had  for  the  Old  Testament 

"  The  Essence  of  Religion,  pp.  256f. 

"A.  C.  Welch,  The  Religion  of  Israel  Under  the  Kingdom,  p.  184. 

''  Isa.  65.  17 ;  66.  22. 

369 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

saint  a  kind  of  sacramental  quality.  They  symbolized  the 
favor  and  presence  of  God.  And  so  with  the  outward 
glory  of  the  Messianic  kingdom.  It  was  but  a  sign  and 
pledge  of  the  new  spiritual  relationship  into  which  God 
had  entered  with  his  people.  No  profounder  conception 
of  this  new  relationship  is  anywhere  to  be  found  in  the 
Old  Testament  than  in  Jeremiah's  description  of  the  new 
covenant  to  be  established  with  the  house  of  Israel.  "I 
will  put  my  law,"  says  Yahweh,  "in  their  inward  parts, 
and  in  their  heart  will  I  write  it ;  and  I  will  be  their  God, 
and  they  shall  be  my  people.  And  they  shall  teach  no 
more  every  man  his  neighbor,  and  every  man  his  brother, 
saying,  Know  Jehovah ;  for  they  shall  all  know  me,  from 
the  least  of  them  unto  the  greatest  of  them,  saith  Je- 
hovah :  for  I  will  forgive  their  iniquity,  and  their  sin  will 
I  remember  no  more."  ^^ 

This  new  covenant  was  to  be  made  with  the  Israelites, 
but  its  influence  was  not  to  be  restricted  to  them.  The 
narrow  nationalists  were  naturally  inclined  to  exclude 
the  heathen  from  its  benefits;  and  the  Old  Testament  is 
by  no  means  free  from  this  spirit.  But  there  were 
broader-minded  men,  Deutero-Isaiah  looked  for  the  sal- 
vation of  the  ends  of  the  earth,^^  and  so  in  the  Psalms  we 
read,  "All  the  ends  of  the  earth  shall  remember  and  turn 
unto  Jehovah."  ^^  He  is  "the  confidence  of  all  the  ends  of 
the  earth."  "^^  But  perhaps  the  most  remarkable  ex- 
pression of  this  universalism  is  to  be  found  in  Isa.  19. 
23-25.  Here  not  even  a  primacy  is  accorded  Israel  in  the 
final  state  of  redemption.     "In  that  day  shall  Israel  be 


Jer.  31.  33f. 
'45.  22,  23. 
'  22.  27. 
'■  65.  5. 

370 


THE  MESSIANIC  HOPE 

the  third  with  Egypt  and  with  Assyria,  a  blessing  in  the 
midst  of  the  earth ;  for  that  Jehovah  of  hosts  hath  blessed 
them,  saying,  Blessed  be  Egypt  my  people,  and  Assyria 
the  work  of  my  hands,  and  Israel  mine  inheritance." 

Having  discussed  the  origin  and  development  of  the 
ideas  of  judgment  and  redemption,  we  pass  now  to  a  con- 
sideration of  the  third  factor  in  the  Messianic  hope,  the 
expectation  of  a  Messiah.  The  coming  of  the  new  king- 
dom was  not  dependent  upon  the  appearance  of  an  ideal 
king.  It  might  be  brought  about  by  the  intervention  of 
Yahweh  alone.  And  this  is  the  prevailing  Old  Testament 
view.  But  in  a  number  of  striking  and  significant  pas- 
sages the  Messianic  hope  is  made  to  center  in  the  Messiah. 
And  the  fact  that  this  is  the  case  with  the  New  Testament 
as  a  whole,  lends  special  interest  to  these  passages  and 
also  to  the  question  as  to  the  origin  and  history  of  the 
conception  contained  in  them. 

In  taking  up  this  question  we  are  confronted  with  the 
same  diversity  of  opinion  that  we  have  met  in  our  study 
of  the  Old  Testament  ideas  of  judgment  and  redemption. 
Some  tell  us  that  the  belief  in  the  coming  of  the  Messiah 
could  not  have  originated  until  the  breach  between  proph- 
ecy and  the  royal  rule  in  Judah  had  become  so  wide  that  it 
could  not  be  bridged  over.  This  state  of  affairs  was 
brought  about  by  the  refusal  of  Ahaz  to  heed  the  word 
of  Isaiah  when  the  two  men  met  at  the  end  of  the  conduit 
of  the  upper  pool  outside  of  Jerusalem  at  the  time  of  the 
Syro-Ephraimitic  war.  It  was  in  that  connection  that  the 
Immanuel  prophecy  was  uttered.  So  Kittel,  referring  to 
this  incident,  says,  "The  hour  in  which  Isaiah  parted  from 
Ahaz  gave  to  the  world  the  thought  of  the  Messiah."  *^ 

*^  History  of  the  Hebrews,  vol.  ii,  p.  346. 

371 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

Others  again  are  very  sure  that  this  idea  did  not  arise 
until  after  the  fall  of  the  Davidic  dynasty.  Not  until  the 
Jews  were  without  a  king  did  they  begin  to  long  for  the 
return  of  David  and  the  establishment  of  the  Messianic 
kingdom.  For  the  earliest  expression  of  this  belief  we 
may,  therefore,  not  go  farther  back  than  Ezekiel,  and  per- 
haps we  should  come  down  as  late  as  the  time  of  Haggai 
and  Zechariah.  But  this  view  implies  that  the  Messianic 
passages  in  Isaiah,  Micah,  and  Jeremiah  were  not  au- 
thentic. And  this  is  a  conclusion  which  we  have  already 
seen  there  are  good  grounds  for  rejecting.  Here  it  need 
only  be  added  that  the  expectation  of  David's  return 
would  more  naturally  have  arisen  shortly  after  his  death, 
when  his  memory  was  still  fresh,  than  centuries  later.  In 
Germany  it  was  seriously  believed  for  a  century  after  the 
death  of  Frederick  II  that  he  was  still  alive  and  that  he 
would  return  and  restore  to  the  empire  the  golden  age  of 
peace.  Similar  beliefs  also  sprang  up  after  the  death 
of  Nebuchadrezzar,  Nero,  Charlemagne,  Frederic  Bar- 
barossa,  and  others. ^^  And  it  is  not  improbable  that  the 
belief  in  the  Davidic  Messiah  originated  in  the  same  way. 
In  later  times  what  was  expected,  it  is  true,  was  not  so 
much  a  return  of  David  himself  as  the  appearance  of  a 
descendant  or  even  a  succession  of  descendants  who  would 
restore  the  glories  of  the  Davidic  reign.  But  this  later 
expectation  is  best  explained  as  a  modification  of  an  ear- 
Her  behef  in  the  actual  return  of  David  himself.^^  In 
either  form,  however,  the  belief  would  most  naturally 
have  arisen  not  long  after  the  time  of  David.    And  if  so, 

"  See  J.  P.  Peters,  The  Religion  of  the  Hebrews,  pp.  427-429,  and 
H.  Gressmann,  "Dcr  Mcssiasglauhe  in  der  Geschichte  der  Volker," 
in  Deutsche  Rundschau,  1914,  pp.  4i2flf. 

"  Hos.  3.  5 ;  Jer.  30.  9 ;  Ezek.  34.  23f. 

372 


THE  MESSIANIC  HOPE 

it  is  quite  as  easy  to  believe  that  it  found  a  place  in  the 
prophecies  of  Isaiah  as  in  those  of  Ezekiel  a  century  and 
a  half  later. 

But  the  expectation  of  a  Messiah  did  not  owe  its  origin 
to  David.  His  remarkable  career  led  men  to  attach  the 
Messianic  hope  to  him  or  to  his  dynasty,  so  that  his  name 
became  the  symbol  of  the  Messianic  King.  But  the 
Messianic  kingship  itself  remained  detachable  from  him 
and  even  from  his  dynasty.  Haggai  and  Zechariah  ex- 
pected that  Zerubbabel  would  prove  to  be  the  Messiah. 
In  the  second  century  B.  C.  the  descent  of  the  Messianic 
King  was  traced  not  to  Judah,  the  tribe  of  David,  but  to 
Levi,  the  tribe  of  the  Maccabees.^^  And  in  the  famous 
Immanuel  prophecy  of  Isaiah  the  Messianic  hope  is  turned 
directly  against  the  Davidic  dynasty.  The  name  of  the 
expected  Messiah,  Immanuel,  means  "God-with-us,"  that 
is,  God  with  Isaiah  and  his  followers  as  against  Ahaz 
and  the  royal  house.  Furthermore,  it  should  be  noted 
that  the  descriptions  of  the  Messiah  and  the  Messianic 
era  in  Isaiah  and  Micah  are  such  as  cannot  have  been  in- 
spired by  David  alone.  Divine  predicates  are  used  of  him, 
his  rule  is  said  to  be  without  limit,  and  his  birth  is 
apparently  thought  of  as  attended  by  some  remarkable 
portent.^^  Such  ideas  cannot  have  been  suggested  simply 
by  reflection  on  the  career  of  David.  They  probably  had 
their  source  in  a  popular  Messianic  belief  that  was  orig- 
inally independent  of  him. 

When  and  how  this  popular  expectation  of  a  Messiah 
arose  we  do  not  know.  It  is  sometimes  said  that  such  a 
hope  would  have  been  unintelligible  before  the  time  of 


*^  R.  H.  Charles,  Religious  Development  Between  the  Old  and  the 
New  Testaments,  pp.  56,  80. 
*'Isa.  7.  14;  Mic.  5.  3. 

373 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

Saul  and  David.  But  this  presupposes  on  the  part  of  the 
pre-monarchic  Israelites  a  degree  of  ignorance  of  the  out- 
side world  which,  to  say  the  least,  is  improbable.  It  is 
possible  that  the  belief  in  a  Messianic  King  was  adopted 
from  the  Canaanites  and  that  it  originally  had  some  con- 
nection with  the  idea  of  the  return  of  the  Paradise-king. 
But  anything  like  certainty  is  here  out  of  the  question. 
The  earliest  reference  to  the  Messiah  is  probably  that 
found  in  the  Blessing  of  Jacob,^^  a  passage  that  may  date 
from  the  time  of  David.  We  read  here  of  the  coming  of 
Shiloh.  Unfortunately,  there  is  some  doubt  as  to  the  cor- 
rectness of  the  text.  Perhaps  we  should  read  instead  of 
Shiloh  "his  king"  or  "he  whose  it  is."  But  in  any  case  the 
reference  seems  clearly  to  be  to  the  Messiah.  To  him  the 
obedience  of  the  peoples  is  to  be.  He  is  to  ride  upon  an 
ass,  but  the  ass  in  this  case  is  not  a  symbol  of  meekness, 
as  in  the  late  Messianic  prophecy  found  in  Zech.  9.  gi., 
but  a  sign  of  royal  dignity.^^  The  coming  of  the  Messiah 
will  bring  to  the  land  of  Judah  paradisaical  fruitfulness, 
but  it  will  also  mean  the  end  of  her  dynasty.  David  and 
his  house  will  continue  to  rule  only  until  the  Messianic 
King  comes.  This,  however,  is  evidently  thought  of  as 
belonging  to  the  distant  future. 

There  are  other  early  passages  in  the  Old  Testament, 
such  as  Num.  24.  lyH.  (J)  and  Deut.  33.  I3ff.  (E), 
which  may  possibly  refer  to  the  Messianic  hope,  but  they 
in  any  case  add  nothing  of  importance  to  our  knowledge 
concerning  it.  How  widely  the  belief  in  a  IVtessiah  was 
current  in  preprophetic  Israel  we  do  not  know,  nor  do  we 
know  to  what  extent  it  affected  the  thought  of  the  reli- 
gious leaders.    But  to  it  in  any  case  the  literary  prophets 

***  Gen.  49.  10-12,  J. 

"Compare  Judg.  10.  4;  2  Sam.  19.  26. 

374 


THE  MESSIANIC  HOPE 

attached  their  message.  Isaiah  declared  that  the  ex- 
pected Messiah  would  come,  but,  contrary  to  the  common 
expectation,  would  come  soon,  and  when  he  came  would 
establish  forever  the  righteous  rule  of  God  in  the  world. 
"Righteousness  shall  be  the  girdle  of  his  waist,  and  faith- 
fulness the  girdle  of  his  loins."  ^"  And  according  to  Jere- 
miah the  Messiah  was  to  bear  the  name  "Jehovah  our 
righteousness,"  ^^  by  which  the  prophet  meant  not  only 
that  the  Messiah  was  to  introduce  the  ideal  righteousness 
of  the  divine  rule,  but  that  he  was  to  be  the  means  by 
which  the  individual  members  of  the  new  kingdom  would 
be  made  righteous. 

Noble,  however,  and  lofty  as  is  this  conception  of  the 
ideal  king,  it  was  not  here  that  the  prophetic  hope  received 
its  highest  expression.  For  that  we  must  turn  to  the 
figure  of  the  Suffering  Servant.  On  petty  etymological 
grounds  it  has  been  argued  that  the  Servant  was  not  the 
Messiah  and  that  he  sustained  no  relation  to  Israel's 
Messianic  hope.  But  with  objections  of  this  kind  we  need 
not  concern  ourselves.  Nor  is  it  a  matter  of  any  special 
importance  whether  the  Servant  be  understood  in  an  indi- 
vidual or  collective  sense.  It  suffices  for  our  present  pur- 
pose that  he  was  regarded  as  the  agent  through  whom  the 
divine  salvation  was  to  be  wrought  in  the  world.  And 
in  the  picture  presented  of  him  we  have  the  sublime 
thought  that  the  redemption  of  men  was  to  be  effected  not 
by  the  exercise  of  force,  but  by  vicarious  suffering.  "He 
was  wounded  for  our  transgressions,  he  was  bruised  for 
our  iniquities;  the  chastisement  of  our  peace  was  upon 
him ;  and  with  his  stripes  we  are  healed."  ^^ 

^Isa.  II.  5- 
"  Jer.  23.  6. 
''  Isa.  53.  5. 

375 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

There  is  yet  another  stage  in  the  development  of  the 
Messianic  teaching  of  the  Old  Testament,  This  is  repre- 
sented by  the  Son  of  Man  or  "one  like  unto  a  son  of  man," 
who,  according  to  the  book  of  Daniel,^^  was  to  come  with 
the  clouds  of  heaven,  and  to  whom  universal  and  ever- 
lasting dominion  was  to  be  given.  Here  also  the  ques- 
tion arises  as  to  whether  we  have  an  individual  or  collec- 
tive conception.  Does  the  "one  like  unto  a  son  of  man" 
mean  "the  glorified  and  ideal  people  of  Israel,"  "the  saints 
of  the  Most  High,"  or  does  it  mean  a  heavenly  angelic 
being?  The  former  view  is  suggested  by  the  context 
(verses  i8,  22,  2."]),  and  is  the  common  one.  But  this 
can  hardly  have  been  the  original  meaning  of  the  term. 
The  expression,  "came  with  the  clouds  of  heaven,"  does 
not  fit  in  well  with  the  collective  interpretation.  To  say 
that  this  means  "that  Israel,  as  the  people  of  Yahweh, 
had  a  heavenly  origin,"  ^^  and  that  "it  was  kept  in  the 
special  care  of  God  until  such  time  as  he  should  see  fit  to 
bring  it  to  its  own,"  is  at  least  somewhat  forced.  What 
we  have  in  the  idea  of  the  Son  of  Man,  and  also  in  that  of 
the  Suffering  Servant,  is  probably  an  originally  individual 
conception,  which  was  later  applied  to  ideal  Israel.  In 
Deutero-Isaiah  the  sufferings  of  Israel  are  declared  to  be 
those  of  the:  Messianic  Redeemer,  the  Servant  of  Yahweh, 
through  whom  the  world's  redemption  is  to  be  wrought. 
And  in  Daniel  the  judicial  office  and  the  world-rule  of 
the  heavenly  Messiah,  the  Son  of  Man,  are  transferred  to 
the  glorified  and  ideal  people  of  Israel.  But  this  col- 
lective application  of  the  terms  does  not  deprive  them  of 
their  Messianic  significance.  The  nation  simply  takes 
over  the  functions  of  the  Messiah.    And  in  the  case  of  the 

"  H.  P.  Smith,  Religion  of  Israel,  p.  303. 


THE  MESSIANIC  HOPE 

"Son  of  Man"  the  individual  interpretation  was  revived 
soon  after  the  time  of  Daniel  and  became  the  common 
one.^^  It  was  this  conception  and  that  of  the  Suffering 
Servant  which  most  profoundly  influenced  Jesus'  concep- 
tion of  his  own  mission  and  destiny.  He  combined  the 
two  ideas,  and  "herein,"  says  Muirhead,  "we  touch  at 
once  the  depth  and  height  of  his  originality."  ^® 

We  may  thus  distinguish  three  stages  in  the  develop- 
ment of  the  Old  Testament  idea  of  the  Messiah :  the  ideal 
King,  the  Suffering  Servant,  and  the  Son  of  Man.  Each 
grew  to  some  extent  out  of  the  conditions  of  the  time  in 
which  it  originated.  The  ideal  King  was  an  expression  of 
the  strength  and  confidence  of  the  nation  in  its  youth;  the 
Suffering  Servant  was  the  counterpart  of  the  afflicted 
people  of  the  exile;  and  the  Son  of  Man  coming  in  the 
clouds  of  heaven  fit  in  with  the  transcendental  and  apoc- 
alyptic type  of  thought  current  toward  the  close  of  the 
Old  Testament  period.  In  these  conceptions  of  the 
Messiah  some  of  the  highest  and  sublimest  thoughts  of  the 
prophets  were  embodied.  Yet  back  of  them  or,  rather, 
involved  in  them,  was,  as  we  have  seen,  the  broader  and 
even  more  significant  conception  of  the  coming  of  the 
kingdom  of  God.  This  idea  was  the  most  striking  and 
characteristic  feature  of  Israel's  religion.  It  is  not  only 
found  in  the  Prophets,  but  pervades  the  Psalms,  and 
formed  the  background  of  Hebrew  thought  during  the 
whole  of  its  creative  period. 

The  expectation  of  a  new  age  stands  in  marked  con-     ^ 
trast  to  the  ancient  Oriental  belief  in  a  series  of  world- 
cycles.     According  to  this  belief,  the  world  would  pass     '^ 

^^  See  Book  of  Enoch,  chapters  xxxvii-lxxi, 
^^  Eschatqlogy  of  Jesus,  p.  203. 

Z77 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

through  a  certain  course,  would  culminate  in  a  great 
catastrophe,  and  then  return  to  its  previous  condition,  run 
the  same  course,  and  end  again  in  the  same  catastrophe. 
This  was  to  continue  indefinitely.  There  was  to  be  no 
permanent  progress.  "That  which  hath  been  is  that 
which  shall  be;  and  that  which  hath  been  done  is  that 
which  shall  be  done :  and  there  is  no  new  thing  under  the 
sun."  ^^  This  conception  was  current  among  the  Baby- 
lonians and  Persians,  is  found  in  Greece  and  Rome,  and 
appears  also  in  the  "prophetic"  texts  of  the  Egyptians. ^^^ 
By  way  of  contrast  with  it  the  Messianic  hope  of  the  He- 
brews introduced  the  idea  of  development.  When  the 
great  cataclysm  should  come  there  would  be  no  reversion 
to  the  previous  order  of  things.  A  new  eternal  kingdom 
of  God  would  emerge.  There  would  be  a  step  forward, 
an  advance,  "This  thought,"  says  A.  C.  Welch,  "of  how 
the  world  was  an  organism,  with  its  inevitable  higher 
view  of  history,  was  one  great  contribution  of  the  He- 
brew to  the  world's  thought.  .  .  .  Even  Greek  thought 
never  broke  away  from  the  Eastern  conception  of  the 
world-cycles  until  it  had  been  fertilized  by  the  infusion 
of  this  Hebrew  contribution."  ^^ 

Now,  in  the  idea  of  development  there  is  a  certain  basis 
for  optimism.  This  is  evident  in  our  modern  life.  The 
law  of  evolution  has  affected  the  mood  of  our  times,  and 


"  Eccl.  I.  9. 

^*  See  Robert  Flint's  Philosophy  of  History,  pp.  88ff.  According 
to  Nemesius,  "the  Stoics  taught  that  in  fixed  periods  of  time  a  burn- 
ing and  destruction  of  all  things  take  place,  and  the  world  returns 
again  from  the  beginning  into  the  very  same  shape  as  it  had  before, 
and  that  the  restoration  of  them  all  happens  not  once  but  often,  or, 
rather,  that  the  same  things  are  restored  an  infinite  number  of 
times." 

^'  The  Religion  of  Israel  Under  the  Kingdom,  p.  260. 

378 


THE  MESSIANIC  HOPE 

has  given  to  it  a  somewhat  more  hopeful  character.    But 
this  effect  has  been  very  general  and  diffusive.    It  has  led 
to  no  new  movement;  and  for  a  manifest  reason.     The 
belief  in  progress  can  become  dynamic  only  when  the  goal 
is  conceived  of  as  not  very  distant.    During  the  persecu- 
tion of  the  Jews  in  Russia  a  number  of  years  ago,  when 
hundreds  were  being  slain,  it  was  reported  in  the  daily 
press  that  Andrew  Carnegie  sent  them  a  cablegram  say- 
ing, "Do  not  be  dismayed.     Under  the  law  of  evolution 
we  must  steadily,   though  slowly,   march  upward,   and 
finally  reach  the  true  conception  of  the  brotherhood  of 
man."     That   this   message   brought   any  great   degree 
of  comfort  to  its  recipients,  is  hardly  probable.  Before  the 
belief  in  development  can  be  translated  into  the  living 
power  of  an  optimistic  faith,  the  goal  of  the  development 
must  be  brought  so  near  that  it  may  be  possible  for  the 
individual  himself  or  at  least  his  immediate  descendants 
to  share  in  it.     And  here  it  is  that  the  strength  of  the 
prophetic  hope  lay.     It  was  no  distant  Utopia  which  the. 
prophets  held  up  before  men,  but  an  imminent  kingdom 
of  God.     The  new  era  was  about  to  dawn.     God  was 
about  to  intervene.     It  was  this  nearness  of  the  divine 
intervention  that   gave   moral   leverage   and   convicting 
power  to  the  prophets'  message.    And  it  was  this  fact  also 
that  made  it  possible  for  them  for  such  a  long  time  to  dis- 
pense with  the  belief  in  personal  immortality.     The  near- 
ness of  the  new  age  made  possible  the  thought  of  personal 
participation  in  it. 

The  older  exegesis  found  everywhere  in  the  Old  Testa- 
ment references  to  Christ.  A  scarlet  thread  could  hardly 
be  mentioned  without  its  being  construed  as  pointing 
forward  to  the  sacrifice  on  Calvary ;  and  so  with  a  thou- 
sand other  details.     That  type  of  exegesis  is  now  past. 

379 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

We  no  longer  look  to  the  Old  Testament  for  specific  pre- 
dictions concerning  Jesus  of  Nazareth.  It  is  the  ethical 
teaching  of  the  prophets,  and  not  their  outlook  into  the 
future,  that  interests  us.  And  so  the  habit  has  arisen  of 
depreciating  the  eschatological  element  in  both  the  Old 
and  New  Testaments.  "Such  ideas,"  we  are  told,  "by 
their  nature  belong  not  to  the  spiritual  kernel  of  religion, 
but  to  its  external  dogmatic  framework.  From  the  point 
of  view  of  pure  religion  they  are  among  the  least  influ- 
ential and  the  least  interesting  of  religious  facts."  ®^ 

But  against  this  tendency  there  has  been  of  late  a  reac- 
tion. It  is  now  coming  to  be  seen  that  we  do  not  do 
justice  to  the  prophets  and  psalmists  when  we  place  an 
almost  exclusive  stress  upon  their  ethical  and  social  teach- 
ing. The  ethical  idealism  of  these  ancient  seers  and 
singers  was  born  out  of  and  sustained  by  their  Messianic 
hope.  Their  eschatology  constituted  the  very  atmosphere 
of  their  religious  life.  It  was  their  supreme  interest,  the 
heart  of  their  message.  Hence  we  are  coming  to  see  that 
the  older  exegesis  was  not  so  wholly  wrong  after  all.  Its 
method  was  completely  mistaken.  But  the  instinct  which 
led  it  to  single  out  the  Messianic  hope  as  the  most  sig- 
nificant element  in  the  Old  Testament  was  sound.  It  was 
this  hope,  and  this  hope  only,  that  made  possible  the  lofty 
idealism  of  the  Hebrew  seer  and  saint.  A  similar  change 
of  attitude  toward  eschatology  is  also  observable  in  the 
New  Testament  field.  "We  are  beginning,"  says  F.  C. 
Burkitt,  "to  see  that  the  apocalyptic  vision,  the  New  Age 
which  God  is  to  bring  us,  is  no  mere  embroidery  of  Chris- 
tianity, but  the  heart  of  its  enthusiasm.  And  therefore 
the  expectations  of  vindication  to  come,  the  imagery  of 
the  Messianic  Feast,  the  'other-worldliness'  against  which 

""  C  H,  Toy,  JudaUm  and  Christianity,  p.  ^^2. 

380 


THE  MESSIANIC  HOPE 

so  many  eloquent  words  were  said  in  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury, are  not  to  be  regarded  as  regrettable  accretions 
foisted  on  by  superstition  to  the  pure  morality  of  the  orig- 
inal gospel.  These  ideas  are  the  Christian  hope,  to  be  alle- 
gorized and  spiritualized  by  us  for  our  own  use  whenever 
necessary,  but  not  to  be  given  up  so  long  as  we  remain 
Christians  at  all."  ^^ 


"'  Preface  to  Schweitzer's  Quest  of  the  Historical  Jesus. 


381 


CHAPTER  XVI 

THE  FUTURE  LIFE 

The  eschatology  of  the  individual  receives  far  less  at- 
tention in  the  Old  Testament  than  that  of  the  nation. 
And  not  only  does  it  receive  less  attention.  Such  views 
as  are  expressed  of  the  individual's  future  are  for  the 
most  part  very  different  from  those  to  which  the  Chris- 
tian believer  has  been  accustomed.  Not  until  almost  the 
close  of  the  Old  Testament  period  do  we  find  the  belief 
in  personal  immortality.  And  even  here  it  is  no  general 
and  assured  conviction  that  meets  us.  Uncertainty,  skep- 
ticism, and  dreary  representations  of  the  future  mingle 
with  the  few  expressions  of  confident  hope.  And  not  only 
does  the  Old  Testament  conception  of  the  individual's 
destiny  fall  below  that  of  the  New  Testament.  It  seems 
on  the  whole  to  be  beneath  the  level  of  several  of  the 
Ethnic  faiths,  "less  tolerable  than  the  Greek,  less  ethical 
than  the  Egyptian,  less  adequate  and  certain  than  the 
Persian."  ^  These  Gentile  religions,  it  is  sometimes  as- 
serted, "had  a  more  special  mission  than  can  be  claimed 
for  the  Hebrew  faith,  in  the  preservation  and  transmis- 
sion of  the  truth  of  a  future  Hfe."  ^  Indeed,  Kant  was 
so  impressed  with  the  lack  of  the  Old  Testament  at  this 
point  that  he  denied  to  Judaism  a  genuinely  religious 
character,  and  Schopenhauer  stigmatized  it,  in  the  form 
in  which  it  appears  in  the  historical  books,  as  "the  rudest 
of  all  religions." 

*  S.  D.  F.  Salmond,  The  Christian  Doctrine  of  Immortality,  p.  174. 
-  Ibid. 

382 


THE  FUTURE  LIFE 

This  singular  attitude  of  the  Old  Testament  toward 
the  belief  in  a  future  life  calls  for  explanation.  The  rea- 
son commonly  given  for  it  is  the  strong  sense  of  solidarity 
that  prevailed  in  ancient  Israel,  The  individual  was  so 
completely  subordinated  to  the  family,  tribe,  and  nation 
that  he  had  no  independent  rights  or  worth.  He  found 
his  satisfaction  in  the  prosperity  of  the  group  to  which 
he  belonged.  If  the  nation  was  believed  to  be  immortal, 
nothing  more  was  needed.  The  Messianic  hope  rendered 
unnecessary  the  belief  in  personal  immortality.  But 
while  there  is  some  truth  in  this  contention,  it  is  not  an 
adequate  reason  for  the  comparatively  negative  attitude 
of  the  Old  Testament  toward  the  question  of  the  indi- 
vidual's destiny.  The  same  attitude  in  even  a  more  pro- 
nounced form  appears  among  the  Babylonians  and  Assyr- 
ians, and  in  their  case  it  could  hardly  be  contended  that 
the  difference  in  this  regard  between  them,  on  the  one 
hand,  and  the  Egyptians,  on  the  other,  was  due  to  their 
more  highly  developed  sense  of  solidarity.  Evidently, 
some  other  explanation  is  necessary.  And  so  the  rela- 
tively undeveloped  thought  of  the  Hebrews  and  Babylon- 
ians concerning  the  future  life  has  been  attributed  to  the 
lack  of  constructive  imagination  on  the  part  of  the  Sem- 
ites.^ The  Semitic  peoples  had  no  drama  and  no  meta- 
physic.  They  concerned  themselves  with  the  empirical 
and  practical,  and  hence  devoted  little  attention  to  what 
took  place  after  death. 

In  this  as  well  as  the  preceding  explanation  there  is 
probably  an  element  of  truth.  But  both  explanations  have 
only  a  limited  validity  as  applied  to  the  Old  Testament. 
It  was  not  simply  lack  of  creative  imagination  that  led  the 
prophets  to  take  such  a  gloomy  view  of  Sheol  and  the 

^  C.  H.  Toy,  Judaism  and  Christianity,  p.  383. 

383 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

future  life.  There  was  another  reason,  as  we  shall  see 
later.  And  as  for  the  idea  of  solidarity  we  have  already 
seen  in  a  previous  chapter  that  nationalism  and  individual- 
ism were  not  antithetical  to  each  other.  The  Messianic 
hope  did  not  necessarily  stand  in  the  way  of  the  develop- 
ment of  the  belief  in  immortality.  In  one  sense  it  rather 
contributed  to  it.  "The  thought  of  the  destiny  of  the 
individual  rose  upon  that  of  the  nation.  The  hope  of 
Israel  carried  with  it  the  hope  of  the  Israelite."  *  No 
doubt  the  expectation  of  the  speedy  coming  of  the  king- 
dom of  God  tended  to  direct  attention  away  from  the 
thought  of  death  and  the  life  hereafter,  but  it  did  so  in 
the  interest  of  a  higher  conception  of  the  Future,  a  con- 
ception that  had  its  significance  for  the  individual  as  well 
as  the  nation.  For  the  nearness  of  the  approaching  king- 
dom made  it  not  only  possible  but  a  matter  of  lively  ex- 
pectation that  the  individual  Israelite  would  share  in  it, 
and  to  this  extent  at  least  the  Messianic  hope  contained  in 
germ  the  later  belief  in  personal  immortality. 

Whether  this  belief  would  not  have  arisen  sooner  in 
Israel  had  not  the  national  hope  been  so  strong,  is  a  ques- 
tion that  admits  of  no  answer.  But  a  providential  pur- 
pose may  be  discerned  in  the  order  of  development  that 
actually  took  place.  The  Messianic  hope,  imperfect  as 
it  was  in  its  earher  forms,  stressed  two  important  truths, 
the  value  of  the  present  life  and  the  social  character  of  the 
life  in  the  new  age.  Both  of  these  truths  have  at  times 
been  overlooked  by  believers  in  immortality.  There  has 
been  on  their  part  a  tendency  to  other-worldliness,  to  a 
depreciation  of  the  life  that  now  is,  and  also  a  tendency 
to  view  the  life  hereafter  in  too  individualistic  a  sense, 
as  simply  a  reward  for  meritorious  conduct.     The  re- 

*  S.  D.  F.  Salmond,  p.  208. 

384 


THE  FUTURE  LIFE 

suit  has  been  to  deprive  the  belief  in  immortality  of 
its  richness  and  sustaining  power.  For,  as  R.  L.  Steven- 
son says,  "To  believe  in  immortality  is  one  thing,  but 
first  of  all  it  is  needful  that  we  believe  in  life."  And 
the  only  life  that  we  can  permanently  believe  in  is  the 
social  life,  the  life  lived  with  and  for  the  brethren.  It 
was  the  failure  of  the  Egyptians,  the  Persians,  and 
Greeks  adequately  to  emphasize  one  or  the  other  of  these 
truths  that  eventually  deprived  their  belief  in  the  life 
hereafter  of  its  vitality.  And  so  it  turned  out  that  the 
Hebrew  religion,  which  seemed  far  cruder  and  more  neg- 
ative in  its  view  of  the  Future  than  these  heathen  faiths, 
but  which  did  emphasize  the  value  of  life  as  such  and  its 
social  character,  "proved  nevertheless  to  be  the  only  reli- 
gion that  moved  on  to  a  vital  and  enduring  faith  in 
immortality."  ^ 

In  tracing  the  development  of  Old  Testament  teaching 
concerning  the  future  life  we  naturally  begin  with  the 
conception  of  Sheol.  The  word  "Sheol"  was  probably 
derived  from  a  root  meaning  "to  be  hollow,"  and  so  cor- 
responded in  meaning  to  the  German  Holle  and  the  Eng- 
lish "hell."  The  representations  of  Sheol  in  the  Old 
Testament  are  not  altogether  uniform,  but  in  general  it 
was  thought  of  as  a  great  subterranean  pit  or  cave  to 
which  all  the  dead  went.^  The  origin  of  this  conception 
is  a  matter  of  uncertainty.  L.  B.  Paton  argues  that  it  was 
of  Sumerian  origin,  and  that  it  was  early  adopted  by 
the  Canaanites  and   from  them  by  the  Hebrews.^     It 

'  S.  D.  F.  Salmond,  p.  i8i. 
°  Compare  Num.  i6.  30,  33. 

'  "The  Hebrew  Idea  of  the  Future  Life,"  in  The  Biblical  World, 
1910,  vol.  i,  pp.  iSQff. 

385 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

was  thus  independent  of  the  general  Semitic  belief  that 
the  dead  haunted  their  graves  and  were  possessed  of 
certain  magical  powers  which  led  men  to  treat  them  as 
objects  of  worship.  But  the  more  common  and  prob- 
able theory  is  that  "Sheol  was  originally  conceived  as 
a  combination  of  the  graves  of  the  clan  or  nation,  and 
as  thus  its  final  abode.  In  due  course  this  conception 
was  naturally  extended  till  it  embraced  the  departed 
of  all  nations,  and  thus  became  the  final  abode  of  all  man- 
kind, good  and  bad  alike."  ^  That  the  idea,  however, 
underwent  this  development  within  Israel  itself  is  im- 
probable. The  conception  of  a  general  rendezvous  of 
the  dead  is  a  very  ancient  one,  and  was  probably  bor- 
rowed or  inherited  by  the  Hebrews.  Their  Sheol  was 
quite  similar  to  the  Aralu  of  the  Babylonians,  and  may 
very  well  have  been  derived  from  it,  or  from  an  earlier 
common  source. 

But  while  the  conception  of  Sheol  may  have  originally 
developed  out  of  the  more  primitive  idea  of  the  tomb  as 
the  abode  of  the  dead,  the  latter  idea  was  not  displaced  by 
it.  The  two  continued  to  exist  together.  This  is  the  case 
throughout  practically  the  whole  of  the  Old  Testament. 
The  dead  are  represented  both  as  gathered  to  their 
fathers  in  the  family  grave  and  as  going  down  into  Sheol. 
Strictly  taken,  these  two  conceptions  were  mutually  ex- 
clusive, but  in  popular  thought  and  speech  this  was  over- 
looked. The  tendency  was  to  confuse  the  two  and  treat 
them  as  interchangeable.®  The  result  was  that  the  old 
cult  of  the;  dead  persisted  along  with  the  belief  in  Sheol. 

That  ancestor  worship  had  a  strong  hold  upon  the 
Israelites  is  evident   from  many  facts.     We  read   fre- 

"  R.  H.  Charles,  Eschatology,  p.  34. 
"  Compare  Isa.  14.  11. 

386 


THE  FUTURE  LIFE 

quently  in  the  Old  Testament  of  offerings  to  the  dead.^^ 
The  bread  of  mourning  was  such  an  offering/^  and  so 
probably  was  the  hair  cut  off  by  mourners. ^^  Further- 
more, "such  Hebrew  graves  as  have  been  found  in  Pal- 
estine contain  deposits  similar  to  those  found  in  Canaan- 
ite  graves  (and  indeed  in  the  graves  of  all  neighboring 
nations) — food,  drink,  arms,  tools,  and  the  hke."  ^^ 
The  mourning  customs  also,  such  as  cutting  into  one's 
flesh^*  and  removing  one's  shoes,^^  point  to  religious 
reverence  for  the  dead.  Such  reverence  is  likewise  implied 
in  the  invocation  or  consultation  of  the  spirits  of  the 
dead  to  which  repeated  references  are  made  in  the  Old 
Testament.^^  It  is  from  this  point  of  view  also  that 
the  importance  of  posterity  among  the  Israelites  is  best 
understood.  The  cult  of  the  dead  was  in  the  hands 
of  one's  sons.  If  it  was  not  observed,  the  dead  would 
lose  whatever  life  and  joy  would  otherwise  be  their 
lot  in  the  hereafter.  It  was  consequently  a  matter  of 
prime  importance  to  the  Israelite  to  have  male  offspring, 
or  at  least  some  one  who  by  adoption  or  otherwise  would 
perform  the  religious  offices  of  a  son  after  one's  death. ^'' 
The  law  of  levirate  marriage,  according  to  which  it  was 
the  duty  of  a  surviving  brother  to  marry  the  childless 
widow  of  his  deceased  brother,^^  owed  its  origin  to  this 
fact.     And  the  same  fact  also  explains  the  belief  that 


"Deut.  26.  14;  Jer.  16.  7;  Psa.  106.  28. 

"  Hos.  9.  4 ;  Ezek.  24.  17. 

"  Isa.  22.  12 ;  Jer.  7.  29 ;  Amos  8.  10. 

'^  J.  P.  Peters,  The  Religioti  of  the  Hebrews,  p.  450. 

"  Lev.  19.  28 ;  21.  5. 

"2  Sam.  15.  30;  Ezek.  24.  17. 

'*  I  Sam.  28;  Isa.  8.  19;  Deut.  18.  11. 

"  Compare  2  Sam.  18.  18. 

"Deut.  25.  5-10. 

387 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

"even  in  the  after-life  men  could  be  punished  by  Yahweh 
through  the  destruction  of  their  posterity,^^  for  with  the 
destruction  of  the  latter  sacrifices  ceased  to  be  made  to 
the  former."  ^o 

In  the  light  of  such  facts  as  these  it  is  clear  that  the 
cult  of  the  dead  and  necromancy  played  no  inconsider- 
able role  in  the  popular  religion  of  Israel.  But  they  did 
so  in  defiance  of  the  national  religion.  From  the  very 
beginning  Yahwism  seems  to  have  assumed  a  hostile  atti- 
tude toward  ancestor-worship  and  everything  associated 
with  it.  Saul  is  reported  to  have  "put  away  those  that 
had  familiar  spirits,  and  the  wizards,  out  of  the  land."  ^^ 
And  the  later  prophets  and  lawgivers  condemn  in  the 
most  pronounced  way  the  necromancers  "that  chirp  and 
that  mutter."  "Should  not,"  asks  Isaiah,  "a  people  seek 
unto  their  God?  on  behalf  of  the  living  should  they  seek 
unto  the  dead?"  ^^  Between  the  worship  of  Yahweh  and 
the  cult  of  the  dead  there  was  a  distinct  antithesis.  Yah- 
weh was  a  jealous  God  and  would  tolerate  no  rivals,  not 
even  the  spirits  of  the  dead.  Everything  connected  with 
ancestor-worship  was  looked  upon  as  idolatrous. ^^ 

This  was  undoubtedly  one  reason  why  the  early 
prophets  devoted  so  little  attention  to  the  after-life.  That 
realm  had  already  been  appropriated  by  other  and  rival 
objects  of  worship.  The  dead  themselves  were  looked 
upon  as  divine  or  semidivine.^*     Then,  too,  the  current 


"  Exod.  20.  5 ;  34.  7 ;  Num.  14.  18 ;  Deut.  5.  9. 

""Compare  Job  21.  19-21.     R.  H.  Charles,  Eschatology,  pp.  25!. 
See  Schwally,  Das  Lebcn  nach  dem  Tode,  pp.  3of. 

-'  I  Sam.  28.  3. 

^'  Isa.  8.  19;  compare  Deut.  18.  11 ;  Lev.  19.  31 ;  20.  6,  27. 

^^  See  Die  israelitischen   Vorstellungen  vom  Zustand  nach  dem 
Tode,  (pp.  38ff.),  by  Alfred  Bertholet. 

•*  I  Sam.  28,  13. 

388 


THE  FUTURE  LIFE 

conception  of  Sheol  was  hardly  such  as  to  suggest  that  it 
belonged  to  the  domain  of  Yahweh.  Yahweh  was  the 
God  of  the  living,  not  of  the  dead.  This,  however,  does 
not  necessarily  mean  that  he  was  so  exclusively  a  national 
God  and  so  completely  limited  in  his  sway  to  the  land  and 
the  people  of  Israel  that  he  had  no  interest  or  power  over 
the  underworld.  The  first  of  the  literary  prophets  repre- 
sents him  as  having  Sheol  within  his  reach,^^  and  the 
manifest  conviction  of  the  rdigious  leaders  of  Israel 
throughout  their  entire  history  was  that  Yahweh  was 
equal  to  every  emergency.  Wherever  his  people  might  be, 
he  was  able  to  protect  them.  What  kept  him  from  taking 
Sheol  under  his  special  care  was  not  its  location  but  its 
character.  It  was  not  beyond  the  reach  of  his  power,  but 
life  there  was  so  shadowy  and  so  unethical  that  it  seemed 
unworthy  of  his  direct  supervision. 

Yahwism  consequently  assumed  a  negative  attitude 
toward  the  future  life.  It  did  not  altogether  deny  the 
existence  of  Sheol,  but  it  tended  to  take  a  very  low  and 
pessimistic  view  of  everything  connected  with  it.  And  so 
there  arose  in  Israel  two  different  representations  of  the 
underworld.  According  to  the  earlier  and  popular  view, 
the  dead  were  possessed  of  a  certain  degree  of  life,  of 
knowledge,  and  of  power.  They  were  self-conscious, 
moved  about,  and  could  even  be  brought  back  to  earth. -^ 
They  were  acquainted  with  the  fortunes  of  their  living 
descendants,  were  interested  in  them,  and  were  able  to 
help  or  injure  them.^^  They  had  supernatural  knowledge, 
could   forecast   the    future;^®   indeed,   were   called   yid- 


-°Amos  9.  2. 

'*  Isa.  14.  9ff. ;  I  Sam.  28. 

"Jer.  31.  isf. 

^  I  Sam.  28. 


389 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

deonim,  "the  knowing  ones,"  ^^  and  were  spoken  of  as 
elohim,  "divine."  The  term  Rephaim  applied  to  them^*' 
is  commonly  interpreted  as  referring  to  their  weakness, 
describing  them  as  "sunken,  powerless  ones,"  but  it  should 
be  noted  that  the  same  term  is  applied  to  "the  vanished 
races,  who  had  left  colossal  remains  behind  them,  evi- 
dences of  their  more  than  normal  human  powers"  ;^^  and 
it  is  possible  that  it  may  have  been  used  in  this  sense  also 
of  the  spirits  of  the  dead. 

But  in  spite  of  their  superhuman  powers  the  lot  of  those 
in  Sheol  was  at  the  best  a  miserable  one.  The  Israelites 
looked  forward  to  it  with  unconcealed  dread.  Almost 
any  kind  of  earthly  existence  was  to  be  preferred  to  it. 
Only  one  condition  was  worse,  and  that  was  the  state  of 
those  who  were  unburied  and  so  not  admitted  to  Sheol, 
or  at  least  not  to  an  honorable  place  in  it.^^  Whether 
there  were  distinctions  of  lot  in  Sheol  is  a  question. 
There  are  a  few  passages  that  speak  of  "the  lowest 
Sheol,"  ^^  "the  chambers  of  death,"  ^^  and  "the  uttermost 
parts  of  the  pit,"  ^^  but  whether  these  expressions  are  to 
be  interpreted  literally  is  uncertain.  In  any  case  the  dis- 
tinctions in  Sheol,  if  such  there  were,  were  not  based  on 
ethical  grounds.  "Here,"  as  J.  P.  Peters  puts  it,  "the 
dead  rested  in  their  places,  according  to  the  character 
not  of  their  deeds  but  of  their  graves."  The  social  dif- 
ferences of  the  present  life  were  carried  over  into  SheoP® 


'Lev.  19.  31;  20.  6;  Isa.  19.  3. 

'Isa.  14.  9;  26.  19;  Psa.  88.  10;  Job  26.  5. 

'  J.  P.  Peters,  Religion  of  the  Hebrews,  p.  449. 

■  Isa.  14.  18-20;  Jer.  22.  19;  25.  ZZ- 

'Deut.  32.  22. 

'  Prov.  7.  27. 

'Isa.  14.  15;  Ezek.  32.  23f . ;  compare  Isa.  24.  2if. 

'  I  Sam.  28.  14 ;  Isa.  14.  9flf. ;  Ezek.  32. 

390 


THE  FUTURE  LIFE 

but  the  ethical  distinctions  vanished. ^'^     Life  there  was 
submoral,  and  in  its  misery  and  emptiness  subhuman. 

But  uninviting  as  Sheol  was  from  the  popular  point  of 
view,  there  is  another  and  darker  representation  of  it  in 
the  Old  Testament.  According  to  this  representation, 
Sheol  was  a  land  of  forgetfulness.^^  It  was  called  Abad- 
don, "destruction,"  ^®  It  was  synonymous  with  silence.^*^ 
From  it  there  was  no  return,^^  and  in  it  there  was  "no 
work,  nor  device,  nor  knowledge,  nor  wisdom,"  ^^  The 
dead  had  no  consciousness  of  themselves  and  no  knowl- 
edge of  others,*^  They  had  no  interest  in  their  living 
descendants  and  no  acquaintance  with  their  affairs.** 
Life  to  them  was  a  blank  nothingness.  Everything  con- 
nected with  it  had  ceased  except  bare  existence.  Indeed, 
there  are  passages  that  seem  to  assert  man's  complete  ex- 
tinction at  death.    The  psalmist  says, 

"Oh  spare  me  that  I  may  receive  strength, 
Before  I  go  hence  and  be  no  more."  *^ 
And  Job  says, 

"Now  shall  I  lie  down  in  the  dust; 
And  thou  shalt  seek  me  diligently,  but  I 

shall  not  be.    .     .     . 
Man  dieth,  and  is  laid  low ; 
Yea,  man  giveth  up  the  ghost,  and  where  is 

he? 
As  the  waters  fail  from  the  sea. 
And  the  river  wasteth  and  drieth  up ; 
So  man  lieth  down,  and  riseth  not."  *® 

"  I  Sam.  28.  19;  Job.  3.  13-19.  "Eccl.  9.  10. 

"'  Psa.  88.  12.  "=  Eccl.  9.  Sf- 

'"  Psa.  88.  II ;  Job  26.  6;  28.  22.  "Job  21.  21 ;  14.  21. 

'"Psa.  115.  17.  '"^Psa.  39-  I3- 

"Job  7.  9;  14.  12.  ''Job  7.  21;  14.  10-12. 

391 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

Such  passages  as  these  are  perhaps  not  to  be  taken  in 
strict  literalness.  They  may  be  expressions  of  a  passing 
mood  rather  than  final  reasoned  convictions.  Still  it 
would  not  have  been  strange,  had  the  belief  in  the  utter 
v^orthlessness  of  the  after-life  led  some  Old  Testament 
saints  at  least  to  a  complete  denial  of  it. 

R.  H.  Charles  derives  the  more  negative  viev^  of  Sheol 
from  what  he  terms  "the  monotheistic  doctrine  of  man's 
nature"  in  Gen.  2-3.  A  strict  trichotomy,  he  holds,  is 
here  taught.  Man  is  composed  of  three  elements — spirit, 
soul,  and  body.  The  spirit  is  the  impersonal  basis  of  life. 
It  came  from  God  and  returns  at  death  to  God.^'  The 
soul,  which  constitutes  the  personal  factor  in  man,  is  the 
"result  of  the  indwelling  of  the  spirit  in  the  material 
body,  and  has  no  independent  existence  of  its  own.  It  is 
really  a  function  of  the  material  body  when  quickened  by 
the  spirit."  *^  It,  consequently,  follows  that  when  spirit 
and  body  are  separated  at  death,  the  soul  ceases  to  exist, 
and  the  individual  personality  vanishes  altogether. 

But  it  is  very  doubtful  if  any  such  clearly  defined 
theory  of  man's  nature  underlay  the  narrative  in  Gen. 
2-3 ;  and  in  any  case  there  is  no  evidence  that  the  more 
negative  view  of  Sheol  just  described  was  a  logical  deduc- 
tion from  it.  The  best  explanation  of  this  view  of  Sheol 
is  the  one  already  suggested.  It  had  its  origin  in  the  pro- 
phetic opposition  to  ancestor-worship  and  to  the  crude, 
superstitious,  and  idolatrous  ideas  and  practices  associated 
with  it.  The  current  view  of  the  life  hereafter  was  too 
shadowy  and  too  unethical  to  commend  itself  to  the  true 
worshiper  of  Yahweh.  Yahweh  was  a  stern  ethical  Deity, 
a  Being  who  manifested  himself  here  and  now  in  the 

*'  Eccl.  12.  7. 

^  Eschatology,  p.  42. 

292 


THE  FUTURE  LIFE 

affairs  of  men,  a  God  of  history  so  real  that  the  realm  of 
the  dead,  as  men  then  understood  it,  seemed  foreign  to 
him.  Hence  the  Old  Testament  saints  turned  away  from 
the  life  hereafter.  As  currently  believed  in,  it  was  empty 
enough ;  but  in  the  light  of  Yahweh's  revelation  of  himself 
it  was  still  more  barren.  It  was  the  very  reverse  of  all 
that  he  stood  for ;  and  so  the  prophets  used  its  emptiness 
and  nothingness  as  a  foil  to  set  off  the  richness  of  the 
present  manifestations  of  the  divine  grace  and  power. 

To  us  this  seems  strange;  not  to  believe  in  the  future 
life  seems  almost  equivalent  to  the  denial  of  religion.  But 
with  the  ancient  prophets  almost  the  reverse  was  the  case. 
"Not  from  want  of  religion,"  says  Dean  Stanley,  "but  (if 
one  might  use  the  expression)  from  excess  of  religion, 
was  this  void  left  in  the  Jewish  mind.  The  Future  Life 
was  not  denied  or  contradicted;  but  it  was  overlooked, 
set  aside,  overshadowed,  by  the  consciousness  of  the  liv- 
ing, actual  presence  of  God  himself.  That  truth,  at  least 
in  the  limited  conceptions  of  the  youthful  nation,  was  too 
vast  to  admit  of  any  rival  truth,  however  precious."  *^ 

This  negative  attitude,  however,  of  early  Yahwism  to 
the  question  of  the  future  life  represented  only  a  transi- 
tional stage.  With  the  development  of  Old  Testament  re- 
ligion it  was  inevitable  that  the  problem  of  the  individual's 
destiny  should  be  seriously  raised.  And  it  was  equally 
inevitable,  if  the  needs  of  the  human  spirit  were  to  be  met, 
that  a  more  positive  attitude  toward  the  subject  should  be 
taken.  Not  only  must  the  reality  of  the  future  life  be 
affirmed;  there  must  also  be  a  strong  conviction  that  it 
is  a  life  of  moral  distinctions,  and  that  to  the  righteous 
it  is  one  of  eternal  blessedness.     In  the  development  of 

**  Lectures  on  the  History  of  the  Jewish  Church,  vol.  i,  pp.  I73f. 

393 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

this  view  three  lines  might  have  been  followed  by  the 
Hebrews;  indeed,  have  been  followed  by  the  human 
spirit.  The  first  is  the  resurrection  of  the  body.  This 
means  the  resumption  of  the  earthly  life.  The  second 
is  the  idea  of  a  judgment  in  the  underworld.  This  de- 
prives the  after-life  of  its  moral  neutrality,  and  gives  to 
it  the  same  interests  and  values  that  the  present  life 
possesses.  The  third  is  the  immortality  of  the  soul.  This 
doctrine  establishes  a  kinship  between  the  human  and  the 
Divine,  and  finds  in  that  kinship  a  ground  for  the  belief 
in  the  endless  existence  of  the  soul.  These  three  lines  of 
thought  were  first  worked  out  by  the  Persians,  Egyptians, 
and  Greeks  respectively.  And  all  three  exercised  a  con- 
siderable influence  on  the  development  of  the  belief  in 
immortality. 

Among  the  Jews  the  idea  of  immortality  took  the  form 
of  the  resurrection  of  the  body.  The  process  by  which 
this  conclusion  was  reached  was  a  long  and  complex  one. 
In  seeking  to  trace  it  we  first  note  that  it  took  its  rise 
within  Yahwism  itself.  It  did  not  grow  out  of  the  popu- 
lar belief  in  Sheol.  Toward  this  belief  the  prophets,  as 
we  have  seen,  took  a  negative  attitude.  They  were  either 
indifferent  to  it,  or  directly  condemned  the  necromancy 
and  cult  of  the  dead  connected  with  it.  But  while  the 
popular  heathen  conception  did  not  form  the  starting 
point  of  the  later  belief  in  personal  immortality,  it  was 
still  not  without  its  positive  value.  Superstitious  and 
idolatrous  though  it  was,  it  had  accustomed  the  popular 
mind  to  the  thought  of  existence  after  death,  and  in  so  far 
had  prepared  the  way  for  the  later  and  higher  faith.  Like 
Spiritualism,  Theosophy,  Christian  Science,  and  New 
Thought  in  recent  times,  it  furnished  a  kind  of  intellec- 
tual or  psychological  support  to  the  true  religious  doctrine 

394 


THE  FUTURE  LIFE 

of  the  future  life,  and  in  this  way  contributed  to  its  de- 
velopment. Had  there  been  no  popular  belief  in  an  after- 
life, had  the  Israelites  been  materialistic  in  their  thought 
and  looked  upon  death  as  the  end  of  all,  it  is  certain  that 
the  later  religious  doctrine  would  have  had  greater  diffi- 
culties to  contend  with,  and  been  still  slower  than  it  was 
in  finding  lodgment  in  their  minds. 

Within  Yahwism  itself  there  were  three  native  lines  of 
thought,  or  developments,  that  led  to  the  doctrine  of  im- 
mortality :  first,  the  rise  of  individualism ;  second,  the  idea 
of  retribution;  and  third,  the  sense  of  fellowship  with 
God.  These  three  factors  were  to  some  extent  interre- 
lated; but  it  will  be  well  to  consider  them,  so  far  as  pos- 
sible, separately. 

We  have  already  discussed  at  some  length  the  develop- 
ment of  individualism.  Here  we  need  only  point  out  the 
way  in  which  the  Messianic  hope  was  affected  by  it.  This 
hope  down  to  the  time  of  the  exile  made  a  certain  provi- 
sion for  the  inevitable  longings  of  the  individual  for  a 
larger  and  fuller  life,  but  it  did  not  promise  him  immor- 
tality. Long  life  would  no  doubt  be  his  lot,  but  for  final 
and  ultimate  satisfaction  he  was  forced  to  turn  to  the 
thought  of  the  abiding  glory  of  the  nation.  This  concep- 
tion, however,  could  not  be  permanently  satisfactory. 
The  individual,  as  he  grew  in  importance,  demanded 
something  more,  and  so  we  read  in  a  postexilic  prophecy^*^ 
that  there  is  to  be  in  the  new  age  a  miraculous  prolonga- 
tion of  human  life.  "As  the  days  of  a  tree  shall  be  the 
days  of  my  people,  and  my  chosen  shall  long  enjoy  the 
work  of  their  hands."  But  this  also  failed  to  meet  the 
growing  demands  of  the  individual  heart.  So  in  a  still 
later  prophecy,  or,  rather,  apocalypse  we  are  told  that 

^  Isa.  65.  20-22. 

395 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

death  itself  is  to  have  no  place  in  the  new  kingdom. 
"He  hath  swallowed  up  death  forever;  and  the  Lord 
Jehovah  will  wipe  away  tears  from  off  all  faces."  ^^ 

But  immortality  in  the  Messianic  age,  comforting  as 
the  hope  no  doubt  was,  did  not  solve  the  problem  of  life 
and  destiny.  Many  would  certainly  not  live  until  the  new 
age  dawned  and  so  would  have  no  share  in  the  immortal 
life  then  granted  men.  Then,  too,  the  repeated  delays  in 
the  coming  of  the  new  era  made  it  necessarily  doubtful 
whether  the  Messianic  utterances  of  the  prophets  were 
not,  after  all,  intended  "for  many  days  to  come"  and  for 
"times  that  are  far  ofif."  ^^  And  if  so,  there  was  little  in 
the  Messianic  hope  that  could  give  comfort  to  the  present 
generation.  Hence  we  find  the  idea  of  immortality  at- 
taching itself  to  the  second  line  of  thought  above  men- 
tioned, the  idea  of  retribution. 

It  is  in  the  book  of  Job,  "our  first,  oldest  statement  of 
the  never-ending  problem,  man's  destiny  and  God's  ways 
with  man  here  in  the  earth,"  ^^  that  these  two  ideas  are 
brought  together.  It  is  here  assumed  that  retribution  is 
a  principle  of  the  divine  government,  but  it  is  strenuously 
contended  that  the  principle  is  not  equitably  applied  in  the 
actual  experiences  of  life.  The  innocent  often  suffer, 
while  the  wicked  prosper.  This  fact  with  Job  was  not 
only  a  matter  of  observation,  it  was  a  testimony  of  his 
own  conscience.  Though  innocent  he  was  sorely  afflicted. 
Tradition,  he  knew,  interpreted  his  sufferings  as  an  evi- 
dence of  guilt;  and  even  God  himself,  he  believed,  re- 
garded him  as  a  sinner.  Otherwise  he  would  not  have 
brought  such  suffering  upon  him.     Nevertheless,  in  the 

"  Isa.  25.  8. 

^'  Ezek.  12.  2y. 

■^^  Thomas  Carlyle,  Heroes  and  Ilcro-Worship,  p.  68. 

396 


THE  FUTURE  LIFE 

face  of  the  clear  indications  of  Providence  and  in  the  face 
of  the  united  voice  of  the  past  he  protested  his  innocence. 
The  inner  voice  of  conscience  was  to  him  more  trust- 
worthy than  any  external  or  objective  standard  of  truth. 
He  knew  from  his  own  experience  that  the  law  of  retribu- 
tion was  not  justly  applied  in  his  case.  And  yet  he  was 
not  prepared  to  reject  the  law.  He  could  not  do  so  with- 
out wrecking  the  moral  universe  itself.  The  law  must, 
therefore,  somehow  be  valid.  But  how  to  harmonize  it 
with  his  own  experience  was  beyond  him.  The  problem 
baffled  him. 

H  there  was  to  be  a  solution,  it  must  lie  beyond  the 
experiences  of  the  present ;  and  so  in  the  stress  and  agony 
of  his  own  soul  Job  turned  to  the  thought  of  the  possibil- 
ity of  another  life.  "H  a  man  die,  shall  he  live  again  ?"  he 
asks,    li  this  were  only  so, 

"All  the  days  of  my  warfare  would  I  wait, 
Till  my  release  should  come."  ^^ 

Sheol,  it  is  here  suggested,  may  perhaps  be  only  a  tempo- 
rary place  of  sojourn,  from  which  the  righteous  will  re- 
turn again  to  life.  But  the  suggestion  gave  only  a  mo- 
mentary gleam  of  light  to  the  sufferer.  His  mind  seemed 
unable  to  rest  in  it.  And  yet  there  must  be  some  escape 
from  the  intolerable  moral  situation  in  which  he  found 
himself.  So  he  turned  to  the  God  of  his  own  ideal,  and 
pleaded  with  him  for  vindication  as  over  against  the  God 
of  traditional  theology. 

"Mine  eye  poureth  out  tears  unto  God, 
That  he  would  maintain  the  right  of  a  man  with 
God."  55 


"Job  14.  14. 
"  16.  20f. 


397 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

What  Job  here  had  in  mind  was  probably  vindication,  not 
in  this  Hfe,  but  after  death.  And  a  little  later  this  thought 
passed  from  a  mere  prayer  to  at  least  a  temporary  convic- 
tion.   He  says : 

"I  know  that  my  Redeemer  liveth, 
And  at  last  he  will  stand  up  upon  the  earth : 
And  after  my  skin,  even  this  body,  is  destroyed, 
Then  without  my  flesh  shall  I  see  God ; 
Whom  I,  even  I,  shall  see,  on  my  side, 
And   mine   eyes    shall   behold,    and   not   as   a 
stranger."  ^^ 

The  text  of  this  important  passage  is  unfortunately  so 
corrupt  that  its  interpretation  in  detail  is  uncertain  and 
difficult.  But  the  main  idea  is  clear.  Job  looked  for- 
ward to  a  vindication  of  himself  after  death,  a  vindica- 
tion of  which  he  himself  would  be  conscious.  This  did 
not  necessarily  imply  immortality.  A  temporary  vision 
of  God  after  death  would  meet  the  demands  of  the  text. 
But  the  significant  thing  is  that  Job  felt  himself  driven  by 
the  moral  antinomies  of  life  to  the  assertion  of  a  con- 
scious existence  after  death.  And  even  though  he  was 
unable  permanently  to  maintain  for  himself  this  high  level 
of  conviction,  he  nevertheless  in  the  above  passage 
pointed  out  the  path  along  which  the  higher  thought  in 
Israel  must  needs  travel.  A  profound  ethical  sense  such 
as  characterized  the  Hebrew  religion  from  the  beginning 
leads  necessarily  by  an  inner  logic  of  its  own  to  the  belief 
in  an  after-life. 

But  more  directly  than  the  growing  individualism  and 
the  intensified  idea  of  retribution  did  the  deepening  sense 
"  19.  25-27. 


THE  FUTURE  LIFE 

of  fellowship  with  God  contribute  to  the  rise  of  the  be- 
lief in  a  blessed  future  life.  What  the  Old  Testament 
saint  most  dreaded  as  he  contemplated  existence  in  Sheol 
was  the  absence  there  of  all  communion  with  God.  The 
psalmist,  for  instance,  says : 

*Tn  death  there  is  no  remembrance  of  thee: 
In  Sheol  who  shall  give  thee  thanks?"  ^^ 

What  gave  value  to  life  from  the  Old  Testament  point  of 
view  was  the  consciousness  of  the  presence  of  God;  and 
it  was  the  removal  of  his  presence  that  made  death  a  spe- 
cial object  of  dread,  and  gave  to  it  the  character  of  a 
divine  judgment. 

According  to  one  method  of  representation  in  the  Old 
Testament,  and  this  the  more  common  one,  death  is 
viewed  simply  as  a  fact  of  the  natural  order.  It  is  the 
inevitable  outcome  of  physical  existence.  Dust  we  are, 
and  to  dust  we  must  return.  Premature  death  is  an  evil, 
and  may  be  a  divine  judgment.  But  death  after  a  long 
life  is  part  of  the  divine  plan.  It  has  in  and  of  itself  no 
religious  significance.  Along  with  this  empirical  view, 
however,  there  is  another  in  the  Old  Testament,  that  sees 
in  death  a  departure  from  the  ideal.  In  the  original  plan 
of  God  death  had  no  place.  Man  was  made  for  life,  for 
endless  life  with  God;  but  the  divine  plan  was  defeated 
by  human  disobedience,  and  death  was  introduced  as  a 
penalty. 

The  latter  view  is  clearly  expressed  in  the  story  of  the 
tree  of  life  in  Genesis  2-3.  It  may  be  that  in  the  original 
J  narrative  there  was  no  reference  to  the  tree  of  life,  and 
that  in  3.  19  death  is  not  to  be  regarded  as  a  part  of  the 
penalty  imposed  on  man.    But  even  so,  it  can  hardly  be 

"6.5. 

399 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

questioned  that  the  tree  of  Hfe  embodied  an  early  Israel- 
itic  conception,  and  that  death,  whether  viewed  as  a  pen- 
alty or  not,  is  in  the  present  narrative  represented  as  actu- 
ally due  to  expulsion  from  the  garden  of  Eden.  The 
same  idea  of  man  as  originally  intended  for  an  immortal 
destiny  is  also  suggested  by  the  statement  that  he  was 
made  in  the  image  of  God.*"^  If  like  God,  it  would  seem 
that  he  ought  to  share  in  the  eternal  life  of  God.  And  in 
the  case  of  two  early  Old  Testament  heroes  it  is  explicitly 
asserted  that  they  escaped  death.  Enoch  was  not,  for 
God  took  him,^^  and  Elijah  was  carried  aloft  in  a  chariot 
of  fire.®"  It  is  a  common  remark  that  these  stories  had 
no  significance  for  the  belief  in  a  future  life,  because  both 
Enoch  and  Elijah  were  wholly  exceptional  men,  perhaps 
"depotentiated  deities."  And  it  is,  of  course,  true  that 
no  general  doctrine  of  immortality  can  be  inferred  from 
their  experiences.  But  what  is  recorded  of  them  must  at 
least  have  suggested  to  the  Hebrews  the  possibility  of  es- 
caping death  and  the  thought  that  the  life  to  come  was  de- 
pendent upon  a  present  life  of  communion  with  God. 
But  suggestive  and  significant  as  these  early  passages  in 
the  Old  Testament  are  to  us,  they  led  to  no  important 
theological  development. 

Not  until  we  come  to  some  of  the  late  psalms  do  we  find 
the  sense  of  fellowship  with  God  drawing  the  inevitable 
conclusion  to  which  it  itself  furnished  the  premises.  If 
God  be  a  God  of  the  living,  and  not  of  the  dead,  if  the 
maintenance  of  conscious  life  be  the  chief  end  of  crea- 
tion, if  communion  with  God  be  the  supreme  good  of 
life,  then  it  must  needs  be  that  this  communion  will  not 


^'Gen.  I.  26 f.,  P. 
^'  Gen.  5.  22-24,  P- 
'°2  Kings  2.  II. 

400 


THE  FUTURE  LIFE 

be  terminated  by  death,  but  will  be  as  endless  as  God  him- 
self. To  suppose  otherwise  would  be  to  think  of  God 
either  as  weaker  than  his  works,  less  powerful  than  Sheol, 
or  as  himself  defeating  the  very  purpose  of  creation. 
Neither  alternative  is  possible  to  faith.  There  must, 
therefore,  somehow  be  deliverance  from  death.  Life  with 
God  must  be  without  end. 

There  are  four  psalms  in  which  this  thought  seems  to 
be  expressed,  and  which  are  consequently  called  psalms 
of  immortality :  the  sixteenth,  seventeenth,  forty-ninth, 
and  seventy-third.  The  first  two,  however,  are  less 
dejfinite  in  their  teaching  on  the  subject  than  the  last  two. 
The  expression,  "when  I  awake,"  in  Psa.  17.  15  has  been 
interpreted  as  meaning  an  awakening  from  the  sleep  of 
death,  and  the  statement  about  beholding  the  "face"  or 
"form"  of  God  has  been  construed  as  a  reference  to  the 
beatific  vision  that  follows  the  awakening.  But  the 
context  is  unfavorable  to  this  interpretation.  What  is 
here  contrasted  is  not  the  present  and  the  future  life, 
but  "an  unreal  and  fugitive  good  apart  from  God,  and  a 
real  and  enduring  good  in  his  fellowship."  And  this  is 
also  the  standpoint  of  Psalm  16.  So  secure  does  the 
author  feel  in  the  consciousness  of  the  divine  presence 
that  he  has  no  fear  even  of  death.     He  says: 

"Thou  wilt  not  leave  my  soul  in  Sheol, 
Neither  wilt  thou  suffer  thy  godly  one  to  see 
corruption"  (verse  10). 

Nothing  is  here  said  about  a  life  after  death.  The  psalm- 
ist is  simply  so  enraptured  by  the  presence  of  God  that 
he  feels  himself  lifted  above  the  thought  of  death.  The 
fact  of  death  is  not  denied,  but  it  is  overlooked,  tran- 
scended.    This  attitude  falls  short  of  the  full  belief  in 

401 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

the  future  life,  but  it  nevertheless  marked  an  important 
advance.  The  idea  of  immortality  is  implicit,  though  not 
explicit. 

The  situation,  however,  in  Psalms  49  and  73  is  differ- 
ent. Here  we  have  definite  statements  relative  to  the 
after-life.  In  Psalm  49  the  fate  of  the  wicked  and  the 
righteous  is  contrasted.  Sheol  is  to  be  the  future  abode 
of  the  wicked. 

"They  are  appointed  as  a  flock  for  Sheol ; 
Death  shall  be  their  shepherd :   .    .    . 
And  their  beauty  shall  be  for  Sheol  to  consume, 
That  there  be  no  habitation  for  it"  (verse  14). 

The  righteous,  on  the  other  hand,  are  to  dwell  in  heaven, 
"God,"  says  the  psalmist,  "will  redeem  my  soul  from 
the  power  of  Sheol ;  for  he  will  take  me,"  as  he  took 
Enoch  of  old  (verse  15).  And  so  in  Psalm  73,  after 
speaking  of  the  certain  destruction  which  awaits  the 
wicked,  the  author  turns  to  the  thought  of  his  own  fel- 
lowship with  God.  Nothing  is  to  be  compared  with  it  in 
value,  not  even  the  universe  itself : 

"Whom  have  I  in  heaven  but  thee? 
And  there  is  none  upon  earth  that  I  desire  be- 
sides thee"  (verse  25). 

Such  perfect  communion  with  God  manifestly  could 
not  brook  the  thought  of  its  own  cessation.  Hence  we 
read, 

"Thou  shall  guide  me  with  thy  counsel, 
And  afterward  receive  me  to  glory"  (verse  24). 

In  Psalms  49  and  73  the  thought  evidently  is  that  the 
righteous  at  death  are  taken  to  heaven,  while  the  wicked 

402 


THE  FUTURE  LIFE 

remain  in  Sheol.  Sheol  is  thus  given  a  moral  character, 
becoming  a  place  of  punishment.  Heaven,  on  the  other 
hand,  as  the  home  of  God,  becomes  the  eternal  reward 
of  the  righteous.  But  rich  as  the  thought  of  the  divine 
abode  was,  it  did  not  fully  satisfy  the  demands  of  the 
Israelitic  mind.  Something  more  definite,  more  tangible 
was  needed.  The  idea  of  the  soul  as  living  apart  from 
the  body  was  one  to  which  the  Old  Testament  writers  did 
not  attain.  Not  even  in  Sheol  was  the  soul  thought  of  as 
body-less.  The  departed  in  Sheol  are  represented  as 
having  bodily  forms, ^^  and  these  bodily  forms  were  ap- 
parently conceived  as  connected  in  some  way  with  the 
bodies  in  the  grave.^^  In  one  instance  it  is  possible  that 
the  idea  is  expressed  that  the  soul  is  "capable  of  the  high- 
est spiritual  activities  though  without  the  body."  Job 
says,  "without  my  flesh  shall  I  see  God."  ^^  R.  H. 
Charles  makes  much  of  these  words,  contending  that  they 
show  that  "it  was  not  necessary  for  Israel  to  borrow 
from  Greece  the  idea  that  the  soul  could  preserve  its 
powers  independently  of  the  body."  But  unfortunately 
the  Hebrew  text  of  this  passage  is  too  uncertain  to  be  ac- 
cepted as  an  adequate  basis  for  so  important  a  conclusion. 
In  any  case,  the  idea  was  an  exceptional  one  in  Israel. 
The  people  generally  seemed  incapable  of  conceiving  "the 
body  without  psychical  functions,  or  the  soul  without 
a  certain  corporeity."  In  order,  consequently,  to  give  to 
the  future  life  definiteness  and  richness  of  content  it  was 
necessary  for  them  to  do  something  more  than  believe  in 
the  immortality  of  the  soul.  They  must  give  to  the  soul 
bodily  form. 

"  Isa.  14.  9flf. 

**Job  14.  22;  Isa.  66.  24. 

''  19.  26. 

403 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

This  incapacity  to  conceive  of  the  soul  apart  from  the 
body  was  one  reason  for  the  rise  of  the  doctrine  of  the 
resurrection  of  the  body.  Another  reason  is  found  in  the 
Messianic  hope.  This  hope  was  an  earthly  hope.  The 
kingdom  to  which  it  looked  forward  was  to  be  realized 
on  earth.  And  it  was  a  hope  that  was  older  than  the  be- 
lief in  individual  immortality.  It  had  laid  firm  hold  upon 
the  national  consciousness,  and  could  not  be  set  aside. 
The  highest  thoughts  of  the  Israelites  centered  about  it. 
If,  then,  the  idea  of  personal  immortality  was  really  to 
grip  the  thought  of  the  people  and  become  a  living  faith, 
it  must  somehow  be  connected  with  the  belief  in  the  com- 
ing kingdom  of  God.  Now  this  was  made  possible  by  the 
doctrine  of  the  resurrection  of  the  body.  The  righteous 
who  died  before  the  dawn  of  the  new  era  were  to  be 
raised  from  the  dead  so  as  to  share  in  its  blessings. 

There  are  two  passages  in  the  Old  Testament  where 
this  belief  is  expressed.  The  first  is  Isa.  26.  19.  Here 
restored  Israel,  addressing  Yahweh,  says,  "Thy  dead  shall 
live ;  my  dead  bodies  shall  arise" ;  and  then,  turning  to 
her  own  dead  children,  she  cries,  "Awake  and  sing,  ye 
that  dwell  in  the  dust;  for  thy  dew  is  as  the  dew  of  herbs, 
and  the  earth  shall  cast  forth  the  dead."  Whether  the 
dead  here  included  all  the  Israelites  or  simply  the  right- 
eous, is  a  question.  Probably  the  latter.  The  author 
would  hardly  have  represented  the  idolatrous  Israelites 
as  being  raised  from  the  dead  to  share  in  the  glories  of 
the  Messianic  age.  For  them  and  the  wicked  generally  he 
evidently  had  in  mind  a  different  fate.^'*  The  other  pas- 
sage is  Dan.  12.  2.  Here  we  have  a  double  resurrection. 
"Many,"  we  read,  "of  them  that  sleep  in  the  dust  of  the 
earth  shall  awake,  some  to  everlasting  life,  and  some  to 

"  See  26.  14 ;  24.  22. 

404 


THE  FUTURE  LIFE 

shame  and  everlasting  contempt."  Whether  the  "many" 
here  spoken  of  refers  to  all  the  Israelites  by  way  of  "com- 
parison with  the  still  more  innumerable  heathen" 
(Ewald),  or  simply  to  "the  preeminently  good  and  bad  in 
Israel"  (Charles),  that  is,  the  martyrs  and  apostates,  is 
uncertain.  The  latter  is  suggested  by  the  immediate  con- 
text.^^  But  in  either  case  what  we  have  is  not  a  general 
resurrection,  but  a  resurrection  merely  of  Israelites. 

The  idea  that  the  wicked  as  well  as  the  righteous  were 
to  be  raised  introduced  into  the  thought  of  the  resurrec- 
tion a  new  motive.  What  underlay  the  idea  of  the  resur- 
rection of  the  righteous  was  the  thought  of  restoration  to 
communion  with  God  and  with  the  righteous  community. 
This  is  the  positive  religious  conception  that  lies  at  the 
basis  of  the  doctrine  as  a  whole.  But  to  this  the  resurrec- 
tion of  the  wicked  adds  the  idea  of  the  retributive  right- 
eousness of  God.  The  wicked  were  to  be  raised  in  order 
to  be  punished.  This  implies  that  Sheol  was  thought  of 
in  the  old  colorless  way  as  a  region  where  there  was 
neither  reward  nor  punishment.  The  assumption,  on  the 
other  hand,  that  only  the  righteous  were  raised,  implied 
that  Sheol,  while  the  temporary  abode  of  the  righteous, 
was  the  eternal  abode  of  the  wicked,  and  so  relatively  at 
least  a  place  of  punishment. 

The  two  Old  Testament  passages  which  we  have  just 
considered  belong  to  a  late  date.  Daniel  comes  from  the 
Maccabean  period,  and  the  apocalypse  in  Isa.  24-27  was 
probably  not  more  than  a  century  earlier.  The  late  ap- 
pearance of  the  doctrine  of  the  resurrection  in  Israel  natu- 
rally suggests  the  theory  that  the  doctrine  was  borrowed 
from  the  Persians,  with  whom  it  originated  earlier,  and 
with  whom  the  Jews  had  been  in  constant  contact  since 

^'See  II.  33ff.;  12.  3. 

405 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

the  latter  part  of  the  sixth  century.  In  favor  of  this 
theory  not  a  Httle  can  be  said.  The  resemblances  between 
the  Mazdean  and  the  Jewish  doctrine,  especially  in  the 
form  represented  by  Dan.  12.  2,  are  manifest.  Both  teach 
a  resurrection  of  the  wicked  as  well  as  the  righteous,  and 
both  connect  it  with  the  final  Judgment.  But  along  with 
these  resemblances  there  are  a  number  of  points  of  differ- 
ence. In  one  the  resurrection  is  universal,  in  the  other 
limited;  in  one  the  Judgment  follows  the  Messianic  era, 
in  the  other  it  precedes  it ;  in  one  the  departed  go  to  their 
reward  or  punishment,  heaven  or  hell,  immediately  after 
death,  in  the  other  they  are  all  detained  together  in  Sheol 
until  the  new  era  dawns. 

Then,  too,  we  have  already  seen  that  there  were  native 
tendencies  in  Israel  naturally  leading  to  the  doctrine  of 
individual  immortality  and  the  resurrection  of  the  body. 
The  growing  individualism,  the  strict  idea  of  divine  retri- 
bution, and  the  deepening  sense  of  fellowship  with  God 
all  made  it  inevitable  that  immortal  life  should  eventually 
be  predicated  of  the  individual.  And  the  strength  of  the 
Messianic  idea  in  Israel  made  it  equally  inevitable  that 
the  immortal  hope  should  take  the  form  of  the  belief  in 
the  resurrection  of  the  body.  This  idea  was  not  new  to 
the  Israelites.  The  prophets,  Elijah  and  Elisha,  had 
raised  the  dead,®®  and  later  prophets  had  applied  the  idea 
of  the  resurrection  to  the  nation.®'  Hence  its  subsequent 
application  to  individual  Israelites  generally  was  only 
natural.  No  suggestion  of  it  from  a  foreign  source  was 
necessary.  This,  of  course,  does  not  mean  that  the  Jews 
were  altogether  uninfluenced  by  their  Persian  environ- 
ment.    To  some  extent  they  must  have  been  affected  by 

"^  I  Kings  17.  22;  2  Kings  4.  35;  13.  21. 
"Ezek.  Z7-  1-14;  Isa.  53.  10-12. 

406 


THE  FUTURE  LIFE 

it.  But,  so  far  at  least  as  the  doctrine  of  the  resurrection 
is  concerned,  there  is  no  good  ground  for  going  beyond 
the  position  taken  by  Kuenen,  who  held  that  "the  germs 
which  lay  hidden  in  Judaism  were  fertilized  by  contact 
with  a  religion  in  which  they  had  arrived  at  maturity."  ^^ 

In  the  development  of  the  idea  of  immortality  in  the 
Old  Testament  we  have  observed  three  stages.  The  first 
asserted  immortality  for  the  individual  in  the  Messianic 
age.  Death  would  then  be  abolished.  In  the  second  the 
pious  soul  expressed  the  conviction  that  his  communion 
with  God  would  be  without  end.  The  third  announced 
the  doctrine  of  the  resurrection.  The  dead  would  be 
raised  to  share  in  the  glories  of  the  Messianic  kingdom. 
Two  different  conceptions  thus  became  current  concern- 
ing the  fate  of  the  individual  at  death.  According  to  one 
he  went  directly  to  heaven  and  continued  there  an  un- 
broken fellowship  with  God.  According  to  the  other  he 
descended  to  Sheol  and  remained  there  until  the  resurrec- 
tion day,  when  he  was  restored  to  communion  with  God 
and  men. 

In  both  of  these  forms  the  new  hope  met  with  more  or 
less  of  skepticism,  as  we  see  from  such  a  book  as  Ecclesi- 
astes,®^  and  from  the  unbelief  of  the  Sadducees.  But  it 
nevertheless  continued  to  make  its  way  until  it  became  a 
firmly  established  article  of  the  popular  faith.  Both 
forms  of  the  belief  persisted  into  the  postcanonical  period. 
Indeed,  they  both  appear  in  the  New  Testament.""  But 
there  was  a  gradual  tendency  to  adjust  the  one  to  the 
other.     Sheol,  for  instance,  came  to  be  thought  of  as  a 


The  Religion  of  Israel,  vol.  iii,  p.  43. 
See  2.  i5f. ;  3.  19-21 ;  6.  3-6;  9.  2-6;  11.  8. 
Compare  Luke  23.  43  and  Mark  12.  i8ff. 

407 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

place  of  moral  distinctions.  The  dead  are  no  longer  in- 
discriminately mingled  together.  "A  division,"  we  read 
in  the  Book  of  Enoch/^  "is  made  for  the  spirits  of  the 
righteous,  in  which  is  a  bright  spring  of  water."  A  fore- 
taste of  the  bliss  of  heaven  is  thus  transferred  to  the  right- 
eous in  Sheol.  Then,  too,  the  resurrection  and  the  Mes- 
sianic age  came  to  be  thought  of  in  less  distinctly  earthly 
or  material  terms.  The  resurrection  was  to  be  either  a 
resurrection  of  the  spirit  or  a  resurrection  "in  garments 
of  light  and  glory."  And  the  earthly  Messianic  kingdom, 
if  established  at  all,  was  not  to  be  eternal.  The  dead  were 
not  to  be  raised  to  participate  in  it.  It  was  to  be  only 
preparatory  to  the  general  resurrection,  which  was  to 
usher  in  the  heavenly  kingdom  or  an  eternal  Messianic 
kingdom  in  a  new  heaven  and  a  new  earth.  A  more  spir- 
itual conception  of  the  future  life  thus  came  to  prevail. 

But  not  until  the  advent  of  Christianity  did  this  higher 
hope  become  a  living  and  burning  faith.  Stripped  of  its 
national  limitations,  it  now  became  a  universal  hope,  the 
hope  of  every  man  as  man.  It  also,  when  linked  up  with 
the  established  fact  of  the  resurrection  of  Christ  and  the 
thought  of  eternal  fellowship  with  him,  carried  with  it  a 
certainty  of  conviction  and  a  richness  of  content  that  were 
altogether  new.  In  a  very  real  sense  Christ  brought  life 
and  immortality  to  light;  so  that  it  was  possible  for  the 
believer  to  say  that  while  "it  is  not  yet  made  manifest 
what  we  shall  be,  we  know  that,  when  he  shall  be  mani- 
fested, we  shall  be  like  him ;  for  we  shall  see  him  even  as 
he  is."  '"■ 

"22.  9. 

"  I  John  3.  2. 


408 


INDEX 

Index  of  Authors  and  Subjects 


Admonitions  of  Ipuwer,  355 
Allen,  A.  V.  G.,  150 
Amos,  156,  358,  361 
Ancestor  worship,  386f. 
Angel  of  Yahweh,  77,  199 
Angels,  138,  192  ff. 
Anthropomorphisms,  58f.,  96 
Apocalypticism,  352 
Ark,  I05f.,  117 
Arnold,  W.  R.,  105 
Atonement,  303f. 
Azazel,  210 

Baal,  Tyrian,  36,  83f. 
Baals,  69f. 

Babylonian  influence,  i3of.,  201 
Bade,  W.  F.,  7  if. 
Baudissin,  137 
Bennett,  W.  H.,  192,  320 
Bertholet,  Alfred,  388 
Blood,  atoning,  313 
Body,  2i9fT. 
.  Bowne,  B.  P.,  49,  58,  67,  137,  189, 

232,   257,   263,   267,   291,  303, 

329.  368 
Brain,  221 
Breasted,  J.  H.,  355 
Brightman,  E.  S.,  28 
Budde,  K.,  158 
Burkitt,  F.  C,  380 

Canaanitic  influence,  130 
Carnegie,  A.,  379 
Ceremonialism,  150,  153,  164,  243, 

247 
Charles,  R.  H.,  228,  322,  331,  353, 

373.  386,  388,  392 
Cherubim,  203,  207 
Cheyne,  T.  K.,  128,  144 
Cleanness,  149 
Compassion,  174 
Comte,  Augusta,  66 
CorniU,  H.,  42,  64,  75,  145,  174 
-Covenant  (berith),  176S.,  370 
Creation  stories,  127 
Greationism,  226 


Creative  activity  of  thought,  2 1 
Creatorship  of  Yahweh,  I24ff. 
Creelman,  Harlan  P.,  38 
Custom  and  morals,  240 

Daniel,  203,  376,  404f. 

David,  119,  297,  372 

Davidson,  A.  B.,  56,  83,  86,  96, 

123,  229,  255,  284 
Day  of  Atonement,  312 
Day  of  Yahweh,  129,  167, 361, 364 
Death,  270,  389f.,  399 
Decalogue,  109,  157 
Decalogue,  so  called  J,  154 
Delitzsch,  Franz,  227 
Demons,  196,  209 
Deutero-Isaiah,    88f.,    I24f.,    178, 

186,  283,  375 
Deuteronomy,  40,  179,  247,  271, 

272 
Devotion  to  Yahweh,  122,  I59f. 
Debelius,  Martin,  106 
Dignity  of  man,  233f. 
Duhm,  B.,  277,  317 

Ecclesiastes,  288 

Egypt,  deliverance  from,  159 

Egyptian  influence,  354 

Eiselen,  F.  C,  27 

Election  of  Israel,  132,  158,  l7of. 

Elijah,  36,  82,  III,  162,  400,  406 

Elohim,  79,  116,  138 

Eschatology,  359ff. 

Eternity  of  God,  135 

Etiquette  in  religion,  150 

Eudemonism,  369 

Evolution,  I7ff.,  28f.,  378 

Exile,  254,  320,  346 

Existence  of  God,  51 

Ezekiel,  148, 178,182,281,293,310, 

318,  343,  352 
Ezra,  4if. 

Face  of  Yahweh,  77 
Fairbairn,  A.  M.,  50 
Faith,  298 


409 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 


Fall  of  man,  261,  270 
Fatherhood  of  God,  182S. 
Fellowship  with  God,  399 
Fite,  Warren,  328 
Flesh  (basar),  2i9ff. 
Flint,  Robert,  17,  316,  378 
Foreign  alliances,  246 
Forgiveness,  29off. 
Frazer,  J.  G.,  220 
Freedom  of  God,  61  f. 
Freedom  of  man,  236f. 
Future  life,  382ff. 

Gabriel,  203 

Glory  of  Yahweh,  77,  I47f. 

Gods,    heathen,    123,    155,    183, 

195- 

Gods,  household,  117 
Goethe,  154 
Gordon,  A.  R.,  32 
Greatness  of  Yahweh,  I46f. 
Gressmann,  Hugo,  78,  106,  354flf., 

372 
Guilt,  263,  266 
Gunkel,  H.,  131,  341,  353 

Habakkuk,  277ff.,  298 

Harper,  Andrew,  51 

Heart,  231 

Heathen,  the,  168,  180,  i85flf.,  364 

Heaven,  104 

Heaven,  host  of,  198 

Hegelian  philosophy,  29 

History,  God  in,  51,  62f. 

Hocking,  W.  E.,  49 

Holiness,  meaning  of,  137,  151 

Holiness  of  God,  I37ff. 

Holiness  of  persons,  151 

Holiness  of  things,  I4if. 

Holy  One  of  Israel,  143 

"Holy  Ones,"  I93f. 

Hosea,  109,  174,  181,  185 

Ideal  King,  375 
Idealism  of  prophets,  167 
Image  of  God,  95,  234f. 
Image-worship,  io9ff.,  246 
Immanence  of  God,  21 
Immanuel  prophecy,  373 
Immorality  at  sanctuaries,  164 
Imposition  of  hands,  312 
Incarnation,  188 

Individualism,  149,  274,  316,  328, 
'33iffM  395f- 


Intercession,  202,  299 

Jastrow,  Morris,  122,  127,  131 
Jealousy  of  Yahweh,  81,  144 
Jehovah,  the  name,  54 
Jeremiah,  178,  245,  259,  280,  293, 

318,  341 
Job,  28,  126,  2iif.,  252,  284,  347, 

396 
Jonah,  187 

Judges,  period  of,  29,  34f. 
Judgment,  day  of,  358ff. 
Justification  by  faith,  171 

Kant,  Immanuel,  21,  255,  382 
Kautzsch,  E.,  31,  38,  56,  84 
Kenites,  158 
Kent,  C.  F.,  292 
Kittel,  R.,  371 
Knowledge  of  God,  52 
Koberle,  J.,  260 
Kodesh,  137 

Kohler,  Dr.  K.,  164,  321 
Konig,  Eduard,  69,  71,  354 
Kosters,  195 
Kraetzschmar,  R.,  179 
Kuenen,  Abraham,  155,  407 

Laidlaw,  J.,  230 
Legalistic  period,  4 if.,  44f. 
Limitations  of  Yahweh,  120,  i62f. 
Localization  of  Yahweh,  I04f. 
Lodge,  Sir  Oliver,  256 
Lohr,  Max,  324 
Love  of  God,  I73ff. 
Lovingkindness,  173 

Malak  Yahweh,  igSi. 
Malakim,  193,  198 
McConnell,  F.  J.,  66 
McFadyen,  J.  E.,  275,  286 
Mediation,  angelic,  202 
Messiah,  37iff. 
Messianic   hope,   33,   294,   35 iff., 

395 
Meyer,  Eduard,  355 
Michael,  202f. 
Miracles,  64f. 

Mitchell,  H.  G.,  27,  85,  206,  211 
Monolatry,  79 
Moore,  G.  F.,  94,  310 
Moses,    25f.,   32,    78f.,    109,    122, 

I57ff. 
Moving  force  in  Yahwism,  I22f, 


410 


INDEX 


Mozley,  J.  K.,  302 
Myers,  F.  W.  H.,  173 

"Name"  of  Yahweh,  77 
Nathan,  162 
Nationalism,  3i6flF. 
Naturalism,  lyi.,  2gi. 
Nature  and  God,  6  if. 
Nature  of  man,  2i7ff. 
Nature  of  sin,  254 
Nature,  transformation  of,  368 
Necromancy,  387 
Nehemiah,  4  if. 

Omnipotence  of  God,  I20f.,  135, 

146 
Omnipresence  of  God,  120,  135 
Omniscience  of  God,  120,  135 
Orchard,  W.  E.,  266,  290 
Origin  of  sin,  26off . 

Paton,  L.  B.,  385 

Patriarchs,  i7of.,  297 

Peake,  A.  S.,  279,  281,  284,  289 

Pentateuch,  2  6f. 

Persian  influence,  201,  405 

Personality,  definition  of,  49 

Personality  of  God,  493. 

Peters,  J.  P.,  71,  iii,  143,  284, 

372,  387,  390 
Piepenbring,  Ch.,  104,  263 
Polybaalism,  69f. 
Pol3^ahwism,  7if. 
Power  of  Yahweh,   iisff.,   I46f., 

389 

Pragmatic  test  of  truth,  22f. 
Preexistence  of  soul,  225 
Pre-Mosaic  Hebrews,  78 
Preprophetic  period,  26, 29f.,  34fTf., 

43f.,  133,  i6if.,  175,  184,  239ff., 

267ff. 
Priestly  code,  27,  41,  125,   I49f., 

I78f.,  247,  311,  346 
Prophetic  period,  26,  30,  38f.,  44 
Prophets,  eighth-century,  39,  85, 

I28f.,  131,  i63f.,  177,  243,  271, 

298,   303,   360,   365,   375,   388, 

392 
Proverbs,  28,  250,  287 
Psalms,  28,  41,  251,  288,  40ifT. 
Psychological  fallacy,  127,  327 
Punishment  of  sin,  266,  29 if.,  300, 

335 
Purity,  i49f. 


Remnant,  the,  335,  361 
Repentance,  298 
Resurrection,  4045. 
Retribution,  272,  336,  396 
Righteousness,  human,  i65f. 
Righteousness  of  God,  151,  I54ff. 
Righteousness   and    grace,    i68f., 

174.  295 
Robinson,  H.  W.,  66, 224,  230,  327 
Rogers,  R.  W.,  56,  127,  340 
Royce,  Josiah,  256 
Russell,  Bertrand,  11  sf. 

Sacrifices,  I02f.,  305ff. 

Salmond,  S.  D.  F.,  382,  384f. 

Salvation,  291 

Satan,  21  off. 

Schultz,  H.,  50,  56,  65,  227,  234 

Schwally,  F.,  259,  388 

Self-respect,  148!. 

Sellin,  E.,  283,  321,  353 

Seraphim,  203,  206 

Sheldon,  H.  C.,  261 

Sheol,  3855. 

Sin,  239ff. 

Sin-offering,  310 

Skinner,  J.,  235,  301 

Smend,  R.,  319,  339 

Smith,  G.  A.,  185,  197 

Smith,  H.  P.,  23,  81,  84,  96,  159, 

352,  376 
Smith,  J.  M.  Powis,  302,  326, 34 if., 

359 
Smith,  W.  R.,  122,  141,  142,  276, 

306,  317.  320,  339 
Solidarity  of  family,  322 
Solidarity  of  nation,  3198. 
Son  of  Man,  376 
Sons  of  God,  138,  193,  210 
Soul  (nephesh),  222E. 
Spirit  (ruach),  94,  229(1. 
Spirit  of  God,  77,  97f.,  114 
SpirituaUty  of  God,  93ff. 
Spirituality  of  man,  2i8flF. 
Stade,  B.,  104,  106,  127,  259,  324, 

352f.,  358 
Stanley,  Dean,  393 
Stars,  the,  205 
Stevens,  G.  B,  295,  301,  308 
Strahan,  J.,  282 
Strickland,  F.  L.,  58 
Substitution,  penal,  3i2ff. 
Suffering,  problem  of,  266ff. 
Suffering  Servant,  375 


411 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 


Taboo,  I39f. 
Temple,  io7f. 
Temple,  William,  266 
Tennant,  F.  R.,  256 
Toy,  H.  C,  31.  256,  380,  383 
Traducianism,  226 
Transcendence  of  God,  201 
Trichotomy,  227f. 
Trinity,  ^6i. 

Unapproachableness  of  God,  144 
Uncleanness,  I39f.,  I49f. 
Unity  of  God,  68ff. 
Unity  of  human  nature,  233 
Universal  rule  of  Yahweh,  I3if. 
Universality  of  sin,  258 
Unwitting  sins,  249,  311 
Utilitarianism  of  Proverbs,  250 

Vatke,  W.,  317 

Vicarious  suffering,  283,  301,  315 

Vico,  G.  B.,  I7fl. 


Warren,  W.  F.,  118 

Welch,  A.  C.,  64,  133,  338,  353, 

362,  369,  378 
Wellhausen,  J.,  25,  30,  32,  56,  80, 

155,  319.  352 
Wisdom  of  God,  77 
Wise  men,  347 
Word  of  God,  77 
World-catastrophe,  362 
World-cycles,  63,  377 
World-mission,  Israel's,  I32f. 
World-purpose  of  Yahweh,  132 
Wrath  of  God,  144 

Yahweh,  the  name,  55!. 
Yahweh  as  war-god,  1 16 
Yahweh  as  husband  of  Israel,  r8o 
Yahweh  as  storm-god,  118 
Yahweh 's    regard    for    his    own 
name,  I48f. 

Zechariah,  204,  211 
Zephaniah,  359 


Index  of  Scripture  Passages 


PAGE 

Gen.  I 60, 125,  234 

1.  26 76, 198, 262, 400 

1-27 95 

2-3 270,392 

2.  4b 130 

2.  7 223,  228,  234 

2.  2if 226 

3 261 

3-  19 399 

3-  22 162,198,235 

4-7 256,262 

4-26 55 

5-  24 259,400 

6.  1-4 210 

6.  5 ► 243,260 

6.  9 259 

7-  I,  22 335 

8.  21 103,  162 

8.  22 65,96 

9 180 

9-6 95.235 

II.  5 120 

11.  7 76,  198 

12.  3 133 

12,  10-20 163, 240, 242 

14 357 


PAGE 

Gen.  15.  6 298 

15-  18 177,  179 

16.  5 336 

17.  1 23 

^7-7 179 

18.  2 206 

18.    14 121 

18.  23ff 299 

18.  27 234 

20.  3,  6 240 

22.  1-14 314 

24-  7 199 

32-  29 203 

48.  14 313 

49 37 

49-  10-12 374 

Exod.  3.  13-15 26,55 

4-21 237 

6.  2-3 23,55 

8.  15 237 

15-  1-3 37.117 

16.  10 147 

18 161,243 

19.  II 104 

20 154 

20.  3 79 


412 


INDEX 

PAGE  PAGE 

Exod.  20.  5 145,  264      Deut.  12.  23 223 

20.  17.  .  : 243  13.  1-3 65 

20.  23 no  13.  12-16 324 

20.  24 73,  105  14.  I 182 

21-23 162,243,335         21.  1-9 314 

21.  12-14 142,242         23.  17 151 

24.  7f 178         24.  10-12 271 

31-  2f 100  25.  5-10 387 

32.  14 299       26.  14 387 

33-  20-33 53.95, 144         26.  16-19 179 

33-  19 296         32.  6 182 

34-7 292         32.  8f 90, 195 

34.  10-26 154, 178         32.  17 90, 196,209 

34-  17 "o         32.  22 390 

Lev.  3.  2,  8 312  33 37 

4-  2,  22 249  33.  9 177 

5-  11-13 313         33-  i3ff 374 

6.  27flE 140      Josh.  5.  i3flE 203 

II.  32ff 140  7.  16-26 322 

11.  44 150  10.  I2f 37,  128 

12.  6-8 311  II.  20 237 

16 210,  312  24.  2,  14! 78 

17-  II 223,313      Judg.  5 37 

18.  26-28 150  5.  4f 104 

19.  28 387  5.  20 128,205 

19-31 150  6.  I9ff 205 

24.  II,  16 55  8.  22ff 35,  III 

26.  45 179  9.  23 209,237 

Num.  10.  35f 37,  106,  117  II.  30ff 35 

14-24 335  13-22 53 

15-  3of 249,  310      I  Sam.  i.  11 339 

16.  27ff 322         2,  2 143 

21.  2 339  2.  6 225 

21.  I7f 37         2.  25 336 

23-24 37         4-4 106 

24.  i7flE 374  6.  19 144,  162 

25.  1-13 300  10.  1-13 35 

Deut.  I.  17 162,243  14-6 121 

I.  31 182  14.  8ff 35,240,268 

4-  7f 53  17-45 117 

4.  12,  15 97  18.  10 100 

4-  19 91,193. 196  19-  i3ff 35 

4-31 178         25.  39 241 

4.  39 87         26.  19 104, 1 19 

6.  4 68,87         26.  23 337 

6.  5 232  28 387,389 

7.  10 342  28.  13 388 

7.  12 179      2  Sam.  I.  19-27 37 

8.  18 171  3-  33f 37 

9-1-3 175  3-39 336 

9.  5 171  6.  6f 144,  153,  162,240 

9.  26f 297  7.  14 183 

10.  1-5 106  II.  25 269 

413 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 

PAGE  PAGE 

2  Sam.  12 162      Psa.  8.  3 125 

12.  13 292  8.  5 138,  193 

13-12 241  14.  I 52 

14-  17 205  14.  3 258 

18.  33 37  15.  iff 252 

21.  i-ii 314,322  16.  10 401 

24.  I 162, 212,  237,  241  17.  15 401 

24.  17 242,335  18.  20fiF 259 

1  Kings  8.  iff 107  19.  I 125 

8.  i2f 37, 128  22.  27 187,370 

8.  46 258  37 288 

12.  28f in  37.  9 285 

17.  18 270  47.  8 146 

18.  I7f 362  49 288,402 

18.  21,  27 84  51.  4 252 

21 162,243,268,322  51.  5 226,264 

22.  8 362  51.  8 295 

22.  19 193,209,  212  51.  7,  IO-I2 294 

2  Kings  2.  II 198,  400  51.  10 252 

4-  35 406  51.  II 99 

8.  19 297  51.  16 251 

14-  5-6 335  73 288,402 

19-34 297  73-25 101,236,288 

I  Chron.  21.  i 212  86.  8 195 

21.  16 207  88.  iif 391 

Job  I.  I,  8 259  89.  6 195 

I.  6 193,211  89.  27 183 

I.  21 225  90.  4 135 

4.  i8f 209,  222  91.  iif 208 

5-1 138  94-9 62 

5.  17-18 286  99.  3 146 

7.  21 260  103.  13 182 

II.  7 53  104- 2,  5 126 

13-  15 286  106.  37 196 

14.  1-4 222,263  III.  9 146 

14-  4 260,264  139 I35f. 

14.  10-12 391  139-  15 225 

14-  14 397  148-  5 126 

14.  22 226,  403      Prov.  3.  16 250 

16.  2of 348,397  7-27 390 

19.  25ff 287,398  8.  22ff 77, 126 

19-26 403  II-  31 285 

21.  19-21 348,388,391  13-  15 275 

25.  4 264  20.  9 258 

26.  7 135  20.  27 1 14 

26.  I2f 131  30.  1-4 52 

26.  14 53, 126      Eccl.  1.8 220 

28.  23ff 77  1-9 63,378 

34-37 255  2.  i5f 407 

38.  7 193,205  7.  15 288 

Psa.  6.  I 145  7.  20 258 

6.  5 399  9-  5f 39i 

8.  I 52  9.  10 391 

414 


INDEX 

PAGE  PAGE 

Eccl.  12.  7 229,392   Isa.  53 30iff.,3i5 

Isa.  I.  11-14 165    53.  4-6 283,375 

I.  13 304    55-3 178 

I.  15 102,165    55.  8f 53 

1.  17 166    57.  15 147 

2.  2-4 132,  186,  366,  368    61.  I 100 

2.  10 147    63.  9 303 

2.  iif 234,361     63.  16 169,  182 

2.  22 234    64.  8 183 

5-  16 152    65.  5 140 

6.  3 87,129,146,147    65.  17 363,369 

6.  5 265    65.  20-22 395 

6.  8 76,  198, 208    66.  1-2 108 

7.  3 336   Jer.  2.  2f 160 

7.  9 298    2.  27 183 

7.  1 1 64    3.  4,  19 1^2 

7-  14 373    3-  10 274 

8.  19 388    3-  16 107,  178 

9.  iff 366    4.  3-4 166,245,299 

9.  12 167    6.  16 163 

10.  5 86,98,  132,  168     6.  20 .165 

11.  2 100     7.  4 107 

II.  5 375    7-22 25,160,304 

II.  6,  8 368    7-24 245 

14.  9ff 389,403    8.  7 236 

14.  26 132     II.  20 245 

19 87     12.  1-5 280 

19.  23-25 187,370    13-  23 245 

22.  12 387    15-  loff 342 

24.  2if 210    15.  i8f 280 

25.  8 396    16.  I9f 186 

26.  19 404    17-  14 293 

28.  15 360    18.  iff 237 

29.  13 102,  165,  245    20.  7ff 280 

31.  3 87,96,222    23.  6 375 

34-4 363    31-9 182 

40.  2 301    31-29 273,342 

40.  12 88,124    31-  31 178,343 

40.  18-20 89,  113    31-  33 370 

40.  2if 126    34-  8ff 176 

40.  25 146    45.  4 ^87 

40.  28 125   Ezek.  I.  28 147 

42.  1-4 171,283    10 207 

42.  6 169,  180    12.  27 396 

43-25 294,296    14.  9 209 

44.  22 294    16.  8 182 

45.  9 237    16.  53-63 186 

45,18 62     16.60 178 

45.  21 169,295    18 344 

45.  22 187     18.  4 318 

49.  6 132,  187    18.  3if 282 

50.  5-9 283    20.  7f.,  24 78 

51.  5f 169, 187, 363   21.  4 :  .  .344 

41S 


RELIGIOUS  TEACHING  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT 


PAGE 

Ezek.  33.  loflf 344 

34-25 178 

36.  2oflf 147 

36.  25-29 293 

36.  26 166,222 

37.  1-14 406 

40.  3 202 

43-  7-9 149 

44-  18 150 

Dan.  4.  13,  23 202 

6.  24 323 

7.  9 60 

7-  i3f 351,376 

8.  I5ff 203 

9.  21 207 

10.  13,  20 196,  204,  210 

12.  1 202 

12.  2 404 

Hos.  I.  7 98 

2.  I4ff 366 

2.  15 160 

2.  18 368 

3-  5 372 

4-3 361 

5-  4 245 

6.  1-4 299 

6.  6 165,244 

6.  7 "^11 

7.  11-13 246 

8.  4 no 

8.  6 87,246 

9-3-5 73 

9-  4 387 

9.  10 160 

11.  1-4 159,  170,  182 

II.  2 no 

11.  8-9 181 

12.  8 241 

13.  2 no 

Amos  2.  7 164 


PAGE 

Amos.  4.  2 143 

4.  6 167 

4-  13 129 

5-  6,  14 156,298 

5-  15 336 

5.  20 361 

5-21 164,303 

5-24 166 

5-  25 25,160,304 

6.  3 361 

6.  10 54 

9-2 132,389 

9.  7 86, 131,  186 

9.  8ff 366 

9.  13 368 

Mic.  3.  8 100 

5-  3 373 

6.  6-7 165 

6.  8 166 

Zech.  I.  8flf 202 

I-  14 145 

2.  3-4 204 

3.  1-5 202,211 

4.  6 98 

9-  9f 374 

14.  9 88 

Mark  7.  8ff 253 

7-  14-23 153 

12.  i8fT 407 

Luke  23.  43 407 

John  4.  21,  24 108 

14.  27 289 

17-  II 153 

Acts  7.  48-50 108 

Gal.  3.  24 24 

4-4 24 

I  Thess.  5.  23 228 

Heb.  4.  12 228 

I  John  3.  2 408 

4.  8,  16 173 


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